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NOETH 

A  M  E  E  I  C  A. 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE, 


AUTHOR  OP 


"THE   WEST   INDIES   AND   THE    SPANISH  MAIN." 


VOLUME  I. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   &  CO. 


AUTHOR'S  EDITION. 


Thra  Edition  of  Trollope's  ''NORTH  AMERICA"  is  pub- 
lished by  special  arrangement  with  the  Author,  Anthony 
Trollope,  Esq.,  at  whose  urgent  request  it  was  under- 
taken, and  to  whom  we  pay  the  regular  copyright. 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  &  CO. 


Philadelphia,  June  20,  1862. 


m 

CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  1. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Introduction   5 

CHAPTER  II. 

Newport — Rhode  Island   21 

CHAPTER  III. 

Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Yerr.ont   35 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Lower  Canada   51 

CHAPTER  V. 

Upper  Canada   70 

CHAPTER  VL 

The  Connection  of  fhe  Canadas  with  Great  Britain   87 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Niagara   101 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

North  and  West   113 

CHAPTER  IX. 

From  Niagara  to  the  Mississippi   126 


(iii) 


ir  CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Upper  Mississippi   147 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ceres  Americana   164 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Buffalo  to  New  York   183 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

An  Apology  for  the  War   194 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

New  York   205 

CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York   235 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Boston   243 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Cambridge  and  Lowell   208 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
The  Rights  of  Women   283 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Education   293 

CHAPTER  XX. 

From  Boston  to  "Washington   311 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

It  has  been  the  ambition  of  my  literary  life  to  write  a 
book  about  the  United  States,  and  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
to  visit  the  country  with  this  object  before  the  intestine 
troubles  of  the  United  States  government  had  commenced. 
I  have  not  allowed  the  division  among  the  States  and  the 
breaking  out  of  civil  war  to  interfere  with  my  intention; 
but  I  should  not  purposely  have  chosen  this  period  either 
for  my  book  or  for  my  visit.  I  say  so  much,  in  order  that  it 
may  not  be  supposed  that  it  is  my  special  purpose  to  write 
an  account  of  the  struggle  as  far  as  it  has  yet  been  carried. 
My  wish  is  to  describe,  as  well  as  I  can,  the  present  social 
and  political  state  of  the  country.  This  I  should  have  at- 
tempted, with  more  personal  satisfaction  in  the  work,  had 
there  been  no  disruption  between  the  North  and  South;  but 
I  have  not  allowed  that  disruption  to  deter  me  from  an  ob- 
ject which,  if  it  were  delayed,  might  probably  never  be  car- 
ried out.  I  am  therefore  forced  to  take  the  subject  in  its 
present  condition,  and  being  so  forced  I  must  write  of  the 
war,  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  it,  and  of  its  probable 
termination.  But  I  v/ish  it  to  be  understood  that  it  was 
not  my  selected  task  to  do  so,  and  is  not  now  my  primary 
object. 

Thirty  years  ago  my  mother  wrote  a  book  about  the 
Americans,  to  which  I  believe  I  may  allude  as  a  well-known 
and  successful  work  without  being  guilty  of  any  undue  fam- 
ily conceit.  That  was  essentially  a  woman's  book.  She 
saw  with  a  woman's  keen  eye,  and  described  with  a  woman's 
light  but  graphic  pen,  the  social  defects  and  absurdities 
which  our  near  relatives  had  adopted  into  their  domestic 
life.    All  that  she  told  was  worth  the  telling,  and  the  tell- 

1*  (5) 


6 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing,  if  done  successfully,  was  sure  to  produce  a  good  result. 
I  am  satisfied  tliat  it  did  so.  But  she  did  not  regard  it  as 
a  part  of  her  work  to  dilate  ou  the  nature  and  operation 
of  those  political  arrangements  which  had  produced  the 
social  absurdities  which  she  saw,  or  to  explain  that  though 
such  absurdities  were  the  natural  result  of  those  arrange- 
ments in  their  newness,  the  defects  would  certainly  pass 
away,  while  the  political  arrangements,  if  good,  would  re- 
main. Such  a  work  is  fitter  for  a  man  than  for  a  woman. 
I  am  very  far  from  thinking  that  it  is  a  task  which  I  can 
perform  with  satisfaction  either  to  myself  or  to  others.  It 
is  a  work  which  some  man  will  do  who  has  earned  a  right 
by  education,  study,  and  success  to  rank  himself  among  the 
political  sages  of  his  age.  But  I  may  perhaps  be  able  to 
add  something  to  the  familiarity  of  Englishmen  with  Amer- 
icans. The  writings  which  have  been  most  popular  in  Eng- 
land on  the  subject  of  the  United  States  have  hitherto 
dealt  chiefly  with  social  details ;  and  though  in  most  cases 
true  and  useful,  have  created  laughter  on  one  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  soreness  on  the  other.  If  I  could  do  anything 
to  mitigate  the  soreness,  if  I  could  in  any  small  degree  add 
to  the  good  feeling  which  should  exist  between  two  nations 
which  ought  to  love  each  other  so  well,  and  which  do  hang 
upon  each  other  so  constantly,  I  should  think  that  I  bad 
cause  to  be  proud  of  my  work. 

But  it  is  very  hard  to  write  about  any  country  a  book 
that  does  not  represent  the  country  described  in  a  more  or 
less  ridiculous  point  of  view.  It  is  hard  at  least  to  do  so 
in  such  a  book  as  I  must  write.  A  De  Tocqueville  may  do 
it.  It  may  be  done  by  any  philosophico- political  or  politi- 
co-statistical, or  statistico-scientific  writer ;  but  it  can  hardly 
be  done  by  a  man  who  professes  to  use  a  light  pen,  and  to 
manufacture  his  article  for  the  use  of  general  readers.  Such 
a  writer  may  tell  all  that  he  sees  of  the  beautiful ;  but  he 
must  also  tell,  if  not  all  that  he  sees  of  the  ludicrous,  at  any 
rate  the  most  piquant  part  of  it.  How  to  do  this  without 
being  offensive  is  the  problem  which  a  man  with  such  a  task 
before  him  has  to  solve.  His  first  duty  is  owed  to  his 
readers,  and  consists  mainly  in  this :  that  he  shall  tell  the 
truth,  and  shall  so  tell  that  truth  that  what  he  has  written 
may  be  readable.  But  a  second  duty  is  due  to  those  of 
whom  he  writes ;  and  he  does  not  perform  that  duty  well  if 
he  gives  offense  to  those  as  to  whom,  on  the  summing  up 


INTRODUCTION. 


of  the  whole  evidence  for  and  against  them  in  his  own 
mind,  he  intends  to  give  a  favorable  verdict.  There  are  of 
course  those  against  whom  a  writer  does  not  intend  to  give 
a  favorable  verdict ;  people  and  places  whom  he  desires  to 
describe,  on  the  peril  of  his  own  judgment,  as  bad,  ill  edu- 
cated, ugly,  and  odious.  In  such  cases  his  course  is  straight- 
forward enough.  His  judgment  may  be  in  great  peril,  but 
his  volume  or  chapter  will  be  easily  written.  Kidicule  and 
censure  run  glibly  from  the  pen,  and  form  themselves  into 
sharp  paragraphs  which  are  pleasant  to  the  reader.  Where- 
as eulogy  is  commonly  dull,  and  too  frequently  sounds  as 
though  it  were  false.  There  is  much  difficulty  in  expressing 
a  verdict  which  is  intended  to  be  favorable ;  but  which, 
though  favorable,  shall  not  be  falsely  eulogistic ;  and  though 
true,  not  olFensive. 

Who  has  ever  traveled  in  foreign  countries  without  meet- 
ing excellent  stories  against  the  citizens  of  such  countries? 
And  how  few  can  travel  without  hearing  such  stories  against 
themselves!  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  avoid  telling  of  a 
very  excellent  gentleniau  whom  I  met  before  I  had  been  in 
the  United  States  a  week,  and  who  asked  me  whether  lords 
in  England  ever  spoke  to  men  who  were  not  lords.  Nor 
can  I  omit  the  opening  address  of  another  gentleman  to  my 
wife.  "You  like  our  institutions,  ma'am  ?"  "Yes,  indeed,'' 
said  my  wife,  not  with  all  that  eagerness  of  assent  which 
the  occasion  perhaps  required.  "Ah,"  said  he,  "I  never 
yet  met  the  down-trodden  subject  of  a  despot  who  did  not 
hug  his  chains."  The  first  gentleman  was  certainly  some- 
what ignorant  of  our  customs,  and  the  second  was  rather 
abrupt  in  his  condemnation  of  the  political  principles  of  a 
person  whom  he  only  first  saw  at  that  moment.  It  comes 
to  me  in  the  way  of  my  trade  to  repeat  such  incidents ;  but 
I  can  tell  stories  which  are  quite  as  good  against  English- 
men. As,  for  instance,  when  I  was  tapped  on  the  back  in 
one  of  the  galleries  of  Florence  by  a  countryman  of  mine, 
and  asked  to  show  him  where  stood  the  medical  Yenus. 
Nor  is  anything  that  one  can  say  of  the  inconveniences  at- 
tendant upon  travel  in  the  United  States  to  be  beaten  by 
what  foreigners  might  truly  say  of  us.  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  look  of  a  Frenchman  whom  I  found  on  a  wet  after- 
noon in  the  best  inn  of  a  provincial  town  in  the  west  of 
England.  He  was  seated  on  a  horsehair-covered  chair  in 
the  middle  of  a  small,  dingy,  ill-furnished  private  sitting- 


8 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


room.  No  eloquence  of  mine  could  make  intelligible  to  a 
rrencbman  or  an  American  the  utter  desolation  of  such  an 
apartment.  The  world  as  then  seen  by  that  Frenchman 
offered  him  solace  of  no  description.  The  air  without  was 
heavy,  dull,  and  thick.  The  street  beyond  the  window  was 
dark  and  narrow.  The  room  contained  mahogany  chairs 
covered  with  horse-hair,  a  mahogany  table,  rickety  in  its 
legs,  and  a  mahogany  sideboard  ornamented  with  inverted 
glasses  and  old  cruet-stands.  The  Frenchman  had  come  to 
the  house  for  shelter  and  food,  and  had  been  asked  whether 
he  was  commercial.  Whereupon  he  shook  his  head.  ''Did 
he  want  a  sitting-room?"  Yes,  he  did.  "He  was  a  leetle 
tired  and  vanted  to  sect."  Whereupon  he  was  presumed  to 
have  ordered  a  private  room,  and  was  shown  up  to  the 
Eden  I  have  described.  I  found  him  there  at  death's  door. 
Nothing  that  I  can  say  with  reference  to  the  social  habits 
of  the  Americans  can  tell  more  against  them  than  the 
story  of  that  Frenchman's  fate  tells  against  those  of  our 
country. 

From  which  remarks  I  would  wish  to  be  understood  as 
deprecating  offense  from  my  American  friends,  if  in  the 
course  of  my  book  should  be  found  aught  which  may  seem 
to  argue  against  the  excellence  of  their  institutions  and  the 
grace  of  their  social  life.  Of  this  at  any  rate  I  can  assure 
them,  in  sober  earnestness,  that  I  admire  what  they  have 
done  in  the  world  and  for  the  world  with  a  true  and  hearty 
admiration ;  and  that  whether  or  no  all  their  institutions 
be  at  present  excellent,  and  their  social  life  all  graceful,  my 
wishes  are  that  they  should  be  so,  and  my  convictions  are 
that  that  improvement  will  come  for  which  there  may  per- 
haps even  yet  be  some  little  room. 

And  now  touching  tliis  war  which  had  broken  out  between 
the  North  and  South  before  I  left  England.  I  would  wish 
to  explain  what  my  feelings  were ;  or  rather  what  I  believe 
tlie  general  feelings  of  England  to  have  been  before  I  found 
myself  among  tlie  people  by  whom  it  was  being  waged.  It 
is  very  difficult  for  the  people  of  any  one  nation  to  realize 
the  political  relations  of  another,  and  to  chew  the  cud  and 
digest  tlie  bearings  of  those  external  politics.  But  it  is 
unjust  in  the  one  to  decide  upon  the  political  aspirations 
and  doings  of  that  other  without  such  understanding.  Con- 
stantly as  the  name  of  France  is  in  our  mouths,  compara- 
tively few  Englishmen  understand  the  way  in  which  France 


iNTllODUCTtON. 


9 


is  governed ;  that  is,  how  far  absolute  despotism  prevails, 
and  how  far  the  power  of  the  one  ruler  is  tempered,  or,  as 
it  may  be,  hampered  by  the  voices  and  influence  of  others. 
And  as  regards  England,  how  seldom  is  it  that  in  common 
society  a  foreigner  is  met  who  comprehends  the  nature  of 
her  political  arrangements  1  To  a  Frenchman — I  do  not 
of  course  include  great  men  who  have  made  the  subject  a 
study, — but  to  the  ordinary  intelligent  Frenchman  the  thing 
is  altogether  incomprehensible.  Language,  it  may  be  said, 
has  much  to  do  w^ith  that.  But  an  American  speaks  Eng- 
lish ;  and  how  often  is  an  American  met  who  has  combined 
in  his  mind  the  idea  of  a  monarch,  so  called,  with  that  of  a 
republic,  properly  so  named — a  combination  of  ideas  which  I 
take  to  be  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  English  politics  ! 
The  gentleman  who  scorned  my  wife  for  hugging  her  chains 
had  certainly  not  done  so,  and  yet  he  conceived  that  he  had 
studied  the  subject.  The  matter  is  one  most  difhcult  of 
comprehension.  How  many  Englishmen  have  failed  to 
understand  accurately  their  own  constitution,  or  the  true 
bearing  of  their  own  politics !  But  when  this  knowledge 
has  been  attained,  it  has  generally  been  filtered  into  the 
mind  slowly,  and  has  come  from  the  unconscious  study  of 
many  years.  An  Englishman  handles  a  newspaper  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  daily,  and  daily  exchanges  some  few 
words  in  politics  with  those  around  him,  till  drop  by  drop 
the  pleasant  springs  of  his  liberty  creep  into  his  mind  and 
water  his  heart ;  and  thus,  earlier  or  later  in  life,  according 
to  the  nature  of  his  intelligence,  he  understands  why  it  is 
that  he  is  at  all  points  a  free  man.  But  if  this  be  so  of  our 
own  politics;  if  it  be  so  rare  a  thing  to  find  a  foreigner 
who  understands  them  in  all  their  niceties,  why  is  it  that  we 
are  so  confident  in  our  remarks  on  all  the  niceties  of  those 
of  other  nations  ? 

I  hope  that  I  may  not  be  misunderstood  as  saying  that 
we  should  not  discuss  foreign  politics  in  our  press,  our 
parliament,  our  public  meetings,  or  our  private  houses. 
No  man  could  be  mad  enough  to  preach  such  a  doctrine. 
As  regards  our  parliament,  that  is  probably  the  best  Brit- 
ish school  of  foreign  politics,  seeing  that  the  subject  is  not 
there  often  taken  up  by  men  who  are  absolutely  ignorant, 
and  that  mistakes  when  made  are  subject  to  a  correc- 
tion which  is  both  rough  and  ready  The  press,  though 
very  liable  to  error,  labors  hard  at  its  vocation  in  teaching 


10 


NORTH  JiMERlCA. 


foreign  politics,  and  spares  no  expense  in  letting  in  day- 
light. If  the  light  let  in  be  sometimes  moonshine,  excuse 
may  easily  be  made.  Where  so  much  is  attempted,  there 
must  necessarily  be  some  failure.  But  even  the  moonshine 
does  good  if  it  be  not  offensive  moonshine.  What  I  would 
deprecate  is,  that  aptness  at  reproach  which  we  assume ; 
the  readiness  with  scorn,  the  quiet  words  of  insult,  the  in- 
stant judgment  and  condemnation  with  which  we  are  so 
inclined  to  visit,  not  the  great  outward  acts,  but  the  smaller 
inward  politics  of  our  neighbors. 

And  do  others  spare  us  ?  will  be  the  instant  reply  of  all 
who  may  read  this.  In  my  counter  reply  I  make  bold  to 
place  myself  and  my  country  on  very  high  ground,  and  to 
say  that  we,  the  older  and  therefore  more  experienced  peo- 
ple as  regards  the  United  States,  and  the  better  governed 
as  regards  France,  and  the  stronger  as  regards  all  the  world 
beyond,  should  not  throw  mud  again  even  though  mud  be 
thrown  at  us.  I  yield  the  path  to  a  small  chimney-sweeper 
as  readily  as  to  a  lady  ;  and  forbear  from  an  interchange  of 
courtesies  with  a  Billingsgate  heroine,  even  though  at  heart 
I  may  have  a  proud  consciousness  that  I  should  not  alto- 
gether go  to  the  wall  in  such  an  encounter. 

I  left  England  in  August  last — August,  1861.  At  that 
time,  and  for  some  months  previous,  1  think  that  the  gen- 
eral English  feeling  on  the  American  question  was  as  fol- 
lows: "This  wide-spread  nationality  of  the  United  States, 
with  its  enormous  territorial  possessions  and  increasing  pop- 
ulation, has  fallen  asunder,  torn  to  pieces  by  the  weight  of 
its  own  discordant  parts — as  a  congregation  when  its  size 
has  become  unwieldy  will  separate,  and  reform  itself  into 
two  wholesome  wholes.  It  is  well  that  this  should  be  so, 
for  the  people  are  not  homogeneous,  as  a  people  should  be 
who  are  called  to  live  together  as  one  nation.  They  have 
attempted  to  combine  free-soil  sentiments  with  the  practice 
of  slavery,  and  to  make  these  two  antagonists  live  together 
in  peace  and  unity  under  the  same  roof;  but,  as  we  have 
long  expected,  they  have  failed.  Now  has  come  the  period 
for  separation;  and  if  the  people  would  only  see  this,  and 
act  in  accordance  with  the  circumstances  which  Providence 
and  the  inevitable  hand  of  the  world's  Ruler  has  prepared 
for  them,  all  would  be  well.  But  they  will  not  do  this.  They 
will  go  to  war  with  each  other.  The  South  will  make  her 
demands  for  secession  with  an  arrogance  and  instant  press- 


INTRODUCTION. 


11 


ure  which  exasperates  the  North ;  and  the  North,  forgetting 
that  an  equable  temper  in  such  matters  is  the  most  powerful 
of  all  weapons,  will  not  recognize  the  strength  of  its  own 
position.  It  allows  itself  to  be  exasperated,  and  goes  to 
war  for  that  which  if  regained  would  only  be  injurious  to 
it.  Thus  millions  on  millions  sterling  will  be  spent.  A 
heavy  debt  will  be  incurred;  and  the  North,  which  divided 
from  the  South  might  take  its  place  among  the  greatest  of 
nations,  will  throw  itself  back  for  half  a  century,  and  per- 
haps injure  the  splendor  of  its  ultimate  prospects.  If  only 
they  would  be  wise,  throw  down  their  arms,  and  agree  to 
part !    But  they  will  not." 

This  was  I  think  the  general  opinion  when  I  left  Eng- 
land. It  would  not,  however,  be  necessary  to  go  back 
many  months  to  reach  the  time  when  Englishmen  were  say- 
ing how  impossible  it  was  that  so  great  a  national  power 
should  ignore  its  own  greatness  and  destroy  its  own  power 
by  an  internecine  separation.  But  in  August  last  all  that 
had  gone  by,  and  we  in  England  had  realized  the  proba- 
bility of  actual  secession. 

To  these  feelings  on  the  subject  may  be  added  another, 
which  was  natural  enough  though  perhaps  not  noble. 
"These  western  cocks  have  crowed  loudly,"  we  said;  *'too 
loudly  for  the  comfort  of  those  who  live  after  all  at  no  such 
great  distance  from  them.  It  is  well  that  their  combs  should 
be  clipped.  Cocks  who  crow  so  very  loudly  are  a  nuisance. 
It  might  have  gone  so  far  that  the  clipping  would  become 
a  work  necessarily  to  be  done  from  without.  But  it  is  ten 
times  better  for  all  parties  that  it  should  be  done  from 
within  ;  and  as  the  cocks  are  now  clipping  their  own  combs, 
in  God's  name  let  them  do  it,  and  the  whole  world  will  be 
the  quieter."  That,  I  say,  was  not  a  very  noble  idea;  but 
it  was  natural  enough,  and  certainly  has  done  somewhat  in 
mitigating  that  grief  which  the  horrors  of  civil  war  and  the 
want  of  cotton  have  caused  to  us  in  England. 

Such  certainly  had  been  my  belief  as  to  the  country.  I 
speak  here  of  my  opinion  as  to  the  ultimate  success  of 
secession  and  the  folly  of  the  war,  repudiating  any  concur- 
rence of  my  own  in  the  ignoble  but  natural  sentiment 
alluded  to  in  the  last  paragraph.  I  certainly  did  think  that 
the  Northern  States,  if  wise,  would  have  let  the  Southern 
States  go.  I  had  blamed  Buchanan  as  a  traitor  for  allow- 
ing the  germ  of  secession  to  make  any  growth ;  and  as  I 


12 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


thought  him  a  traitor  then,  so  do  I  think  him  a  traitor  now. 
But  I  had  also  blamed  Lincoln,  or  rather  the  government 
of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  in  this  matter  is  no  more  than  the 
exponent,  for  his  efforts  to  avoid  that  which  is  inevitable. 
In  this  1  think  that  I — or  as  I  believe  1  may  say  we,  we 
Englishmen — were  wrong.  I  do  not  see  how  the  North, 
treated  as  it  was  and  had  been,  could  have  submitted  to 
secession  without  resistance.  We  all  remember  what  Shak- 
speare  says  of  the  great  armies  which  were  led  out  to  fight 
for  a  piece  of  ground  not  large  enough  to  cover  the  bodies 
of  those  who  would  be  slain  in  the  battle ;  but  I  do  not 
remember  that  Shakspeare  says  that  the  battle  was  on  this 
account  necessarily  unreasonable.  It  is  the  old  point  of 
honor  which,  till  it  had  been  made  absurd  by  certain  changes 
of  circumstances,  was  always  grand  and  usually  beneficent. 
These  changes  of  circumstances  have  altered  the  manner  in 
which  appeal  may  be  made,  but  have  not  altered  the  point 
of  honor.  Had  the  Southern  States  sought  to  obtain 
secession  by  constitutional  means,  they  might  or  might  not 
have  been  successful;  but  if  successful,  there  would  have 
been  no  war.  I  do  not  mean  to  brand  all  the  Southern 
States  with  treason,  nor  do  I  intend  to  say  that,  having 
secession  at  heart,  they  could  have  obtained  it  by  constitu- 
tional means.  But  I  do  intend  to  say  that,  acting  as  they 
did,  demanding  secession  not  constitutionally,  but  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  constitution,  taking  upon  themselves  the  right 
of  breaking  up  a  nationality  of  which  they  formed  only  a 
part,  and  doing  that  without  consent  of  the  other  part, 
opposition  from  the  North  and  war  was  an  inevitable  con- 
sequence. 

It  is,  I  think,  only  necessary  to  look  back  to  the  Revolu- 
tion by  which  the  United  States  separated  themselves  from 
England  to  see  this.  There  is  hardly  to  be  met,  here  and 
there,  an  Englishman  who  now  regrets  the  loss  of  the  re- 
volted American  colonies;  who  now  thinks  that  civilization 
was  retarded  and  the  world  injured  by  that  revolt;  who 
now  conceives  that  England  should  have  expended  more 
treasure  and  more  lives  in  the  hope  of  retaining  those  col- 
onies. It  is  agreed  that  the  revolt  was  a  good  thing ;  that 
those  who  were  then  rebels  became  patriots  by  success,  and 
that  they  deserved  well  of  all  coming  ages  of  mankind. 
But  not  the  less  absolutely  necessary  was  it  that  England 
should  endeavor  to  hold  her  own.    She  was  as  the  mother 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


bird  when  tlie  young  bird  will  fly  alone.  Slie  suffered  those 
pangs  which  Nature  calls  upon  mothers  to  endure. 

As  was  the  necessity  of  British  opposition  to  American 
independence,  so  was  the  necessity  of  Northern  opposition 
to  Southern  secession.  I  do  not  say  that  in  other  respects 
the  two  cases  were  parallel.  The  States  separated  from  us 
because  they  would  not  endure  taxation  without  representa- 
tion— in  other  words,  because  they  were  old  enough  and  big 
enough  to  go  alone.  The  South  is  seceding  from  the  North 
because  the  two  are  not  homogeneous.  They  have  different 
instincts,  different  appetites,  different  morals,  and  a  different 
culture.  It  is  well  for  one  man  to  say  that  slavery  has 
caused  the  separation,  and  for  another  to  say  that  slavery 
has  not  caused  it.  Each  in  so  saying  speaks  the  truth. 
Slavery  has  caused  it,  seeing  that  slavery  is  the  great  point 
on  which  the  two  have  agreed  to  differ.  But  slavery  has 
not  caused  it,  seeing  that  other  points  of  difference  are  to 
be  found  in  every  circumstance  and  feature  of  the  two  peo- 
ple. The  North  and  the  South  must  ever  be  dissimilar. 
In  the  North  labor  will  always  be  honorable,  and  because 
honorable,  successful.  In  the  South  labor  has  ever  been 
servile — at  least  in  some  sense — and  therefore  dishonorable ; 
and  because  dishonorable,  has  not,  to  itself,  been  successful. 
In  the  South,  I  say,  labor  ever  has  been  dishonorable;  and 
I  am  driven  to  confess  that  I  have  not  hitherto  seen  a  sign 
of  any  change  in  the  Creator's  fiat  on  this  matter.  That 
labor  will  be  honorable  all  the  world  over  as  years  advance 
and  the  millennium  draws  nigh,  I  for  one  never  doubt. 

So  much  for  English  opinion  about  America  in  August 
last.  And  now  I  will  venture  to  say  a  word  or  two  as  to 
American  feeling  respecting  this  English  opinion  at  that 
period.  It  will  of  course  be  remembered  by  all  my  readers 
that,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  Lord  Russell,  who  was 
then  in  the  lower  house,  declared,  as  Foreign  Secretary  of 
State,  that  England  would  regard  the  North  and  South  as 
belligerents,  and  would  remain  neutral  as  to  both  of  them. 
This  declaration  gave  violent  offense  to  the  North,  and  has 
been  taken  as  indicating  British  sympathy  with  the  cause 
of  the  seceders.  I  am  not  going  to  explain — indeed,  it 
would  be  necessary  that  I  should  first  understand — the  laws 
of  nations  with  regard  to  blockaded  ports,  privateering, 
ships  and  men  and  goods  contraband  of  war,  and  all  those 
semi-nautical,  semi-military  rules  and  axioms  which  it  is 

2 


14 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


necessary  that  all  attorneys-general  and  such  like  should,  at 
the  present  moment,  have  at  their  fingers'  end.  But  it  must 
be  evident  to  the  most  ignorant  in  those  matters,  among 
which  large  crowd  I  certainly  include  myself,  that  it  was 
essentially  necessary  that  Lord  John  Russell  should  at  that 
time  declare  openly  what  England  intended  to  do.  It  was 
essential  that  our  seamen  should  know  where  they  would 
be  protected  and  where  not,  and  that  the  course  to  be  taken 
by  England  should  be  defined.  Reticence  in  the  matter 
was  not  within  the  power  of  the  British  government.  It 
behooved  the  Foreign  Secretary  of  State  to  declare  openly 
that  England  intended  to  side  either  with  one  party  or  with 
the  other,  or  else  to  remain  neutral  between  them. 

I  had  heard  this  matter  discussed  by  Americans  before  I 
left  England,  and  I  have  of  course  heard  it  discussed  very 
frequently  in  America.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
front  of  the  offense  given  by  England  to  the  Northern  States 
was  this  declaration  of  Lord  John  Russell's.  But  it  has 
been  always  made  evident  to  me  that  the  sin  did  not  consist 
in  the  fact  of  England's  neutrality — in  the  fact  of  her  re- 
garding the  two  parties  as  belligerents — but  in  the  open 
declaration  made  to  the  world  by  a  Secretary  of  State  that 
she  did  intend  so  to  regard  them.  If  another  proof  were 
wanting,  this  w^ould  afford  another  proof  of  the  immense 
weigljt  attached  in  America  to  all  the  proceedings  and  to  all 
the  feelings  of  England  on  this  matter.  The  very  anger  of 
the  North  is  a  compliment  paid  by  the  North  to  England. 
But  not  the  less  is  that  anger  unreasonable.  To  those  in 
America  who  understand  our  constitution,  it  must  be  evi- 
dent that  our  government  cannot  take  official  measures 
without  a  public  avowal  of  such  measures.  France  can  do 
so.  Russia  can  do  so.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  can  do  so,  and  could  do  so  even  before  this  rupture. 
But  the  government  of  England  cannot  do  so.  All  men 
connected  with  the  government  in  England  have  felt  them- 
selves from  time  to  time  more  or  less  hampered  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  publicity.  Our  statesmen  have  been  forced  to 
fight  their  battles  with  the  plan  of  their  tactics  open  before 
their  adversaries.  But  we  in  England  are  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  general  result  is  good,  and  that  battles  so  fought 
and  so  won  will  be  fought  with  the  honestest  blows  and  won 
with  the  surest  results.  Reticence  in  this  matter  was  not 
possible ;  and  Lord  John  Russell,  in  making  the  open 


INTRODUCTION. 


1$ 


avowal  which  gave  such  offense  to  the  Northern  States, 
only  did  that  which,  as  a  servant  of  England,  England  re- 
quired him  to  do. 

"What  would  you  in  England  have  thought,"  a  gentle- 
man of  much  weight  in  Boston  said  to  me,  "if,  when  you 
were  in  trouble  in  India,  we  had  openly  declared  that  we 
regarde(^l  your  opponents  there  are  as  belligerents  on  equal 
terms  with  yourselves  ?"  I  was  forced  to  say  that,  as  far  as 
I  could  see,  there  was  no  analogy  between  the  two  cases. 
In  India  an  army  had  mutinied,  and  that  an  army  composed 
of  a  subdued,  if  not  a  servile  race.  The  analogy  would  have 
been  fairer  had  it  referred  to  any  sympathy  shown  by  us  to 
insurgent  negroes.  But,  nevertheless,  had  the  army  which 
mutinied  in  India  been  in  possession  of  ports  and  sea-board; 
had  they  held  in  their  hands  vast  commercial  cities  and 
great  agricultural  districts;  had  they  owned  ships  and  been 
masters  of  a  wide-spread  trade,  America  could  have  done 
nothing  better  toward  us  than  have  remained  neutral  in  such 
a  conflict  and  have  regarded  the  parties  as  belligerents. 
The  only  question  is  whether  she  would  have  done  so  well 
by  us.  *'But,"  said  my  friend,  in  answer  to  all  this,  "we 
should  not  have  proclaimed  to  the  world  that  we  regarded 
you  and  them  as  standing  on  an  equal  footing."  There 
again  appeared  the  true  gist  of  the  offense.  A  word  from 
England  such  as  that  spoken  by  l^ord  John  Russell  was  of 
such  weight  to  the  South  that  the  North  could  not  endure 
to  have  it  spoken.  I  did  not  say  to  that  gentleman,  but 
here  I  may  say  that,  had  such  circumstances  arisen  as  those 
conjectured,  and  had  America  spoken  such  a  word,  England 
would  not  have  felt  herself  called  upon  to  resent  it. 

But  the  fairer  analogy  lies  between  Ireland  and  the 
Southern  States.  The  monster  meetings  and  O'Connell's 
triumphs  are  not  so  long  gone  by  but  that  many  of  us  can 
remember  the  first  demand  for  secession  made  by  Ireland, 
and  the  line  which  was  then  taken  by  American  sympathies. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  America  then  believed  that 
Ireland  would  secure  secession,  and  that  the  great  trust  of  the 
Irish  repealers  was  in  the  moral  aid  which  she  did  and  would 
receive  from  America.  "But  our  government  proclaimed  no 
sympathy  with  Ireland,"  said  my  friend.  No.  The  Amer- 
ican government  is  not  called  on  to  make  such  proclama- 
tions, nor  had  Ireland  ever  taken  upon  herself  the  nature 
and  labors  of  a  belligerent. 


16 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


That  this  anger  on  the  part  of  the  North  is  unreasonable, 
I  cannot  doubt.  That  it  is  unfortunate,  grievous,  and  very 
bitter,  I  am  quite  sure.  But  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  in  any 
degree  surprising.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  did  I  belong 
to  Boston  as  I  do  belong  to  London,  I  should  share  in  the 
feeling,  and  rave  as  loudly  as  all  men  there  have  raved 
against  the  coldness  of  England.  When  men  have  on  hand 
such  a  job  of  work  as  the  North  has  now  undertaken,  they 
are  always  guided  by  their  feelings  rather  than  their  reason. 
What  two  men  ever  had  a  quarrel  in  which  each  did  not 
think  that  all  the  world,  if  just,  would  espouse  his  own  side 
of  the  dispute  ?  The  North  feels  that  it  has  been  more 
than  loyal  to  the  South,  and  that  the  South  has  taken  ad- 
vantage of  that  over-loyalty  to  betray  the  North.  "We 
have  worked  for  them,  and  fought  for  them,  and  paid  for 
them,"  says  the  North.  "By  our  labor  we  have  raised 
their  indolence  to  a  par  with  our  energy.  While  we  have 
worked  like  men,  we  have  allowed  them  to  talk  and  bluster. 
We  have  warmed  them  in  our  bosom,  and  now  they  turn 
against  us  and  sting  us.  The  world  sees  that  this  is  so. 
England,  above  all,  must  see  it,  and,  seeing  it,  should  speak 
out  her  true  opinion."  The  North  is  hot  with  such  thoughts 
as  these  ;  and  one  cannot  wonder  that  she  should  be  angry 
with  her  friend  when  her  friend,  with  an  expression  of  cer- 
tain easy  good  wishes,  bids  her  fight  out  her  own  battles. 
The  North  has  been  unreasonable  with  England ;  but  I  be- 
lieve that  every  reader  of  this  page  would  have  been  as 
unreasonable  had  that  reader  been  born  in  Massachusetts. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jones  are  the  dearly-beloved  friends  of  my 
family.  My  wife  and  I  have  lived  with  Mrs.  Jones  on  terms 
of  intimacy  which  have  been  quite  endearing.  Jones  has 
had  the  run  of  my  house  with  perfect  freedom ;  and  in  Mrs. 
Jones's  drawing-room  I  have  always  had  my  own  arm-chair, 
and  have  been  regaled  with  large  breakfast-cups  of  tea, 
quite  as  though  I  were  at  home.  But  of  a  sudden  Jones 
and  his  wife  have  fallen  out,  and  there  is  for  awhile  in 
Jones  Hall  a  cat-and-dog  life  that  may  end — in  one  hardly 
dare  to  surmise  what  calamity,  Mrs.  Jones  begs  that  I  will 
Interfere  with  lier  husband,  and  Jones  entreats  the  good 
ofiBces  of  my  wife  in  moderating  the  hot  temper  of  his  own. 
But  we  know  better  than  that.  If  we  interfere,  the  chances 
are  that  my  dear  friends  will  make  it  up  and  turn  upon  us. 
I  grieve  beyond  measure  in  a  general  way  at  the  temporary 


INTRODUCTION. 


It 


break  up  of  the  Jones-Hall  happiness.  I  express  general 
wishes  that  it  may  be  temporary.  But  as  for  saying  which 
is  right  or  which  is  wrong — as  to  expressing  special  sympa- 
thy on  either  side  in  such  a  quarrel — it  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. My  dear  Jones,  you  must  excuse  me.  Any  news 
in  the  city  to-day  ?  Sugars  have  fallen  ;  how  are  teas  ?" 
Of  course  Jones  thinks  that  I'm  a  brute ;  but  what  can 
I  do? 

I  hare  been  somewhat  surprised  to  find  the  trouble  that 
has  been  taken  by  American  orators,  statesmen,  and  logi- 
cians to  prove  that  this  secession  on  the  part  of  the  South 
has  been  revolutionary — that  is  to  say,  that  it  has  been  un- 
dertaken and  carried  on  not  in  compliance  with  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  but  in  defiance  of  it.  This  has 
been  done  over  and  over  again  by  some  of  the  greatest  men 
of  the  North,  and  has  been  done  most  successfully.  But 
what  then  ?  Of  course  the  movement  has  been  revolution- 
ary and  anti-constitutional.  Nobody,  no  single  Southerner, 
can  really  believe  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
as  framed  in  1787,  or  altered  since,  intended  to  give  to  the 
separate  States  the  power  of  seceding  as  they  pleased.  It 
is  surely  useless  going  through  long  arguments  to  prove 
this,  seeing  that  it  is  absolutely  proved  by  the  absence  of 
any  clause  giving  such  license  to  the  separate  States.  Such 
license  would  have  been  destructive  to  the  very  idea  of  a 
great  nationality.  Where  would  New  England  have  been, 
as  a  part  of  the  United  States,  if  Ne\f  York,  which  stretches 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  borders  of  Canada,  had  been  en- 
dowed with  the  power  of  cutting  off  the  six  Northern  States 
from  the  rest  of  the  Union  ?  No  one  will  for  a  moment 
doubt  that  the  movement  was  revolutionary,  and  yet  infinite 
pains  are  taken  to  prove  a  fact  that  is  patent  to  every  one. 

It  is  revolutionary;  but  what  then  ?  Have  the  Northern 
States  of  the  American  Union  taken  upon  themselves,  in 
1861,  to  proclaim  their  opinion  that  revolution  is  a  sin? 
Are  they  going  back  to  the  divine  right  of  any  sovereignty  ? 
Are  they  going  to  tell  the  world  that  a  nation  or  a  people 
is  bound  to  remain  in  any  political  status  because  that  sta- 
tus is  the  recognized  form  of  government  under  which  such 
a  people  have  lived  ?  Is  this  to  be  the  doctrine  of  United 
States  citizens — of  all  people  ?  And  is  this  the  doctrine 
preached  now,  of  all  times,  when  the  King  of  Naples  and 
the  Italian  dukes  have  just  been  dismissed  from  their  thrones 

2* 


18 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


with  such  enchanting  nonchalance  because  their  people  have 
not  chosen  to  keep  thera  ?  Of  course  the  movement  is  rev- 
olutionary;  and  why  not  ?  It  is  agreed  now  among  all  men 
and  all  nations  that  any  people  may  change  its  form  of 
government  to  any  other,  if  it  wills  to  do  so — and  if  it  can 
do  so. 

There  are  two  other  points  on  which  these  Northern 
statesmen  and  logicians  also  insist,  and  these  two  other 
points  are  at  any  rate  better  worth  an  argument  than  that 
which  touches  the  question  of  revolution.  It  being  settled 
that  secession  on  the  part  of  the  Southerners  is  revolution, 
it  is  argued,  firstly,  that  no  occasion  for  revolution  had  been 
given  by  the  North  to  the  South ;  and,  secondly,  that  the 
South  has  been  dishonest  in  its  revolutionary  tactics.  Men 
certainly  should  not  raise  a  revolution  for  nothing;  and  it 
may  certainly  be  declared  that  whatever  men  do  they  should 
do  honestly. 

But  in  that  matter  of  the  cause  and  ground  for  revolu- 
tion, it  is  so  very  easy  for  either  party  to  put  in  a  plea  that 
shall  be  satisfactory  to  itself!  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jones  each 
had  a  separate  story.  Mr.  Jones  was  sure  that  the  right 
lay  with  him ;  but  Mrs.  Jones  was  no  less  sure.  No  doubt 
the  North  had  done  much  for  the  South ;  had  earned  money 
for  it;  had  fed  it;  and  had,  moreover,  in  a  great  measure 
fostered  all  its  bad  habits.  It  had  not  only  been  generous 
to  the  South,  but  over-indulgent.  But  also  it  had  contin- 
ually irritated  the  South  by  meddling  with  that  which  the 
Southerners  believed  to  be  a  question  absolutely  private  to 
themselves.  The  matter  was  illustrated  to  me  by  a  New 
Hampshire  man  who  was  conversant  with  black  bears.  At 
the  hotels  in  the  New  Hampshire  mountains  it  is  customary 
to  find  black  bears  chained  to  poles.  These  bears  are  caught 
among  the  hills,  and  are  thus  imprisoned  for  the  amusement 
of  the  hotel  guests.  "  Them  Southerners,"  said  my  friend, 
"are  jist  as  one  as  that  'ere  bear.  We  feeds  him  and  gives 
him  a  house,  and  his  belly  is  oilers  full.  But  then,  jist  be- 
case  he's  a  black  bear,  we're  oilers  a  poking  him  with  sticks, 
and  a'  course  the  beast  is  a  kinder  riled.  He  wants  to  be 
back  to  the  mountains.  He  wouldn't  have  his  belly  filled, 
but  he'd  have  his  own  way.  It's  jist  so  with  them  South- 
erners." 

It  is  of  no  use  proving  to  any  man  or  to  any  nation  that 
llioy  luiv('  got  all  they  should  want,  if  they  have  not  got  all 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


that  they  do  want.  If  a  servant  desires  to  go,  it  is  of  no 
avail  to  show  him  that  he  has  all  he  can  desire  in  his  pres- 
ent place.  The  Northerners  say  that  they  have  given  no 
offense  to  the  Southerners,  and  that  therefore  the  South  is 
wrong  to  raise  a  revolution.  The  very  fact  that  the  North 
is  the  North,  is  an  offense  to  the  South.  As  long  as  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Jones  were  one  in  heart  and  one  in  feeling,  having 
the  same  hopes  and  the  same  joys,  it  was  well  that  they 
should  remain  together.  But  when  it  is  proved  that  they 
cannot  so  live  without  tearing  out  each  other's  eyes,  Sir 
Cresswell  Cresswell,  the  revolutionary  institution  of  domes- 
tic life,  interferes  and  separates  them.  This  is  the  age  of 
such  separations.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  North  should 
use  its  logic  to  show  that  it  has  received  cause  of  offense 
but  given  none;  but  I  do  think  that  such  logic  is  thrown 
away.  The  matter  is  not  one  for  argument.  The  South 
has  thought  that  it  can  do  better  without  the  North  than 
with  it ;  and  if  it  has  the  power  to  separate  itself,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  it  has  the  right. 

And  then  as  to  that  question  of  honesty.  Whatever  men 
do  they  certainly  should  do  honestly.  Speaking  broadly, 
one  may  say  that  the  rule  applies  to  nations  as  strongly  as 
to  individuals,  and  should  be  observed  in  politics  as  accu- 
rately as  in  other  matters.  We  must,  however,  confess  that 
men  who  are  scrupulous  in  their  private  dealings  do  too 
constantly  drop  those  scruples  when  they  handle  public 
affairs,  and  especially  when  they  handle  them  at  stirring 
moments  of  great  national  changes.  The  name  of  Napo- 
leon III.  stands  fair  now  before  Europe,  and  yet  he  filched 
the  French  empire  with  a  falsehood.  The  union  of  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  is  a  successful  fact,  but  nevertheless  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  it  was  honestly  achieved.  I  heartily 
believe  that  the  whole  of  Texas  is  improved  in  every  sense 
by  having  been  taken  from  Mexico  and  added  to  the  South- 
ern States,  but  I  much  doubt  whether  that  annexation  was 
accomplished  with  absolute  honesty.  We  all  reverence  the 
name  of  Cavour,  but  Cavour  did  not  consent  to  abandon 
Nice  to  Erance  with  clean  hands.  When  men  have  politi- 
cal ends  to  gain  they  regard  their  opponents  as  adversaries, 
and  then  that  old  rule  of  war  is  brought  to  bear,  deceit  or 
valor — either  may  be  used  against  a  foe.  Would  it  were 
not  so  1  The  rascally  rule  —  rascally  in  reference  to  all 
political  contests — is  becoming  less  universal  than  it  was. 


20 


NORTH  AMERICA 


But  it  still  exists  with  sufficient  force  to  be  urged  as  an  ex« 
cuse;  and  while  it  does  exist  it  seems  almost  needless  to 
show  that  a  certain  amount  of  fraud  has  been  used  by  a 
certain  party  in  a  revolution.  If  the  South  be  ultimately 
successful,  the  fraud  of  which  it  may  have  been  guilty  will 
be  condoned  by  the  world. 

The  Southern  or  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States 
had,  as  all  men  know,  been  in  power  for  many  years.  Either 
Southern  Presidents  had  been  elected,  or  Northern  Presi- 
dents with  Southern  politics.  The  South  for  many  years 
had  had  the  disposition  of  military  matters,  and  the  power 
of  distributing  military  appliances  of  all  descriptions.  It 
is  now  alleged  by  the  North  that  a  conspiracy  had  long 
been  hatching  in  the  South  with  the  view  of  giving  to  the 
Southern  States  the  power  of  secession  whenever  they  might 
think  fit  to  secede ;  and  it  is  further  alleged  that  President 
after  President,  for  years  back,  has  unduly  sent  the  military 
treasure  of  the  nation  away  from  the  North  down  to  the 
South,  in  order  that  the  South  might  be  prepared  when  the 
day  should  come.  That  a  President  with  Southern  instincts 
should  unduly  favor  the  South,  that  he  should  strengthen 
the  South,  and  feel  that  arms  and  ammunition  were  stored 
there  with  better  effect  than  they  could  be  stored  in  the 
North,  is  very  probable.  We  all  understand  what  is  the 
bias  of  a  man's  mind,  and  how  strong  that  bias  may  become 
when  the  man  is  not  especially  scrupulous.  But  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  President  previous  to  Buchanan  sent  mili- 
tary materials  to  the  South  with  the  self-acknowledged 
purpose  of  using  them  against  the  Union.  That  Buchanan 
did  so,  or  knowingly  allowed  this  to  be  done,  I  do  believe, 
and  I  think  that  Buchanan  was  a  traitor  to  the  country 
whose  servant  he  was  and  whose  pay  he  received. 

And  now,  having  said  so  much  in  the  way  of  introduc- 
tion, I  will  begin  my  journey. 


BOSTON. 


CHAPTER  IL 

NEWPORT — RHODE  ISLAND. 

We — the  we  consisting  of  my  wife  and  myself — left  Liv- 
erpool for  Boston  on  the  24th  August,  18G1,  in  the  Arabia, 
one  of  Cunarcl's  North  American  mail  packets.  We  had 
determined  that  my  wife  should  return  alone  at  the  begin- 
ning of  winter,  when  I  intended  to  go  to  a  part  of  the 
country  in  which,  under  the  existing  circumstances  of  the 
war,  a  lady  might  not  feel  herself  altogether  comfortable. 
I  proposed  staying  in  America  over  the  winter,  and  return- 
ing in  the  spring ;  and  this  programme  I  have  carried  out 
with  sufficient  exactness. 

The  Arabia  touched  at  Halifax;  and  as  the  touch  ex- 
tended from  11  A. M  to  6  p.m.  we  had  an  opportunity  of  see- 
ing a  good  deal  of  that  colony;  not  quite  sufficient  to  jus- 
tify me  at  this  critical  age  in  writing  a  chapter  of  travels  in 
Nova  Scotia,  but  enough  perhaps  to  warrant  a  paragraph. 
It  chanced  that  a  cousin  of  mine  was  then  in  command  of 
the  troops  there,  so  that  we  siiw  the  fort  with  all  the  hon- 
ors. A  dinner  on  shore  was,  I  think,  a  greater  treat  to  us 
even  than  this.  We  also  inspected  sundry  specimens  of  the 
gold  which  is  now  being  found  for  the  first  time  in  Nova 
Scotia,  as  to  the  glory  and  probable  profits  of  which  the 
Nova  Scotians  seemed  to  be  fully  alive.  But  still,  I  think 
the  dinner  on  shore  took  rank  with  us  as  the  most  memor- 
able and  meritorious  of  all  that  we  did  and  saw  at  Halifax. 
At  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  but  one  after  that  we  were 
landed  at  Boston. 

At  Boston  I  found  friends  ready  to  receive  us  with  open 
arms,  though  they  were  friends  we  had  never  known  before. 
I  own  that  I  felt  myself  burdened  with  much  nervous  anx- 
iety at  my  first  introduction  to  men  and  women  in  Boston. 
I  knew  what  the  feeling  there  was  with  reference  to  Eng- 
land, and  I  knew  also  how  impossible  it  is  for  an  English- 
man to  hold  his  tongue  and  submit  to  dispraise  of  England. 


22 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


As  for  going  among  a  people  whose  whole  minds  were  filled 
with  affairs  of  the  war,  and  saying  nothing  about  the  war, 
I  knew  tliat  no  resolution  to  such  an  effect  could  be  carried 
out.  If  one  could  not  trust  one's  self  to  speak,  one  should 
have  stayed  at  home  in  England.  I  will  here  state  that  I 
always  did  speak  out  openly  what  1  thought  and  felt,  and 
that  though  1  encountered  very  strong — sometimes  almost 
fierce — opposition,  1  never  was  subjected  to  anything  that 
was  personally  disagreeable  to  me. 

In  September  we  did  not  stay  above  a  week  in  Boston, 
having  been  fairly  driven  out  of  it  by  the  musquitoes.  I 
had  been  told  that  I  should  find  nobody  in  Boston  whom  I 
cared  to  see,  as  everybody  was  habitually  out  of  town  dur- 
ing the  heat  of  the  latter  summer  and  early  autumn ;  but 
this  was  not  so.  The  war  and  attendant  turmoils  of  war 
had  made  the  season  of  vacation  shorter  than  usual,  and 
most  of  those  for  whom  I  asked  were  back  at  their  posts. 
I  know  no  place  at  which  an  Englishman  may  drop  down 
suddenly  among  a  pleasanter  circle  of  acquaintance,  or  find 
himself  with  a  more  clever  set  of  men,  than  he  can  do  at 
Boston.  I  confess  that  in  this  respect  I  think  that  but  few 
towns  are  at  present  more  fortunately  circumstanced  than 
the  capital  of  the  Bay  State,  as  Massachusetts  is  called, 
and  that  very  few  towns  make  a  better  use  of  their  advant- 
ages. Boston  has  a  right  to  be  proud  of  what  it  has  done 
for  the  world  of  letters.  It  is  proud ;  but  I  have  not  found 
that  its  pride  was  carried  too  far. 

Boston  is  not  in  itself  a  fine  city,  but  it  is  a  very  pleasant 
city.  They  say  that  the  harbor  is  very  grand  and  very  beau- 
tiful. It  certainly  is  not  so  fine  as  that  of  Portland,  in  a  nau- 
tical point  of  view,  and  as  certainly  it  is  not  as  beautiful. 
It  is  the  entrance  from  the  sea  into  Boston  of  which  people 
say  so  much;  but  I  did  not  think  it  quite  worthy  of  all  I 
had  heard.  In  such  matters,  however,  much  depends  on 
the  peculiar  light  in  which  scenery  is  seen.  An  evening 
light  is  generally  the  best  for  all  landscapes ;  and  I  did  not 
see  the  entrance  to  Boston  harbor  by  an  evening  light.  It 
was  not  the  beauty  of  the  harbor  of  which  I  thought  the 
most,  but  of  the  tea  which  had  been  sunk  there,  and  of  all 
that  came  of  that  successful  speculation.  Few  towns  now 
standing  have  a  right  to  be  more  proud  of  their  antecedents 
than  Boston. 

But  as  I  have  said,  it  is  not  specially  interesting  to  the 


PROPOSED  TERMINATION  OF  THE  WAR.  23 


eye ;  what  new  town,  or  even  what  simply  adult  town,  can 
be  so  ?  There  is  an  Atheneum,  and  a  State  Hall,  and  a 
fashionable  street, — Beacon  Street,  very  like  Piccadilly  as 
it  runs  along  the  Green  Park, — and  there  is  the  Green  Park 
opposite  to  this  Piccadilly,  called  Boston  Common.  Bea- 
con Street  and  Boston  Common  are  very  pleasant.  Excel- 
lent houses  there  are,  and  large  churches,  and  enormous 
hotels;  but  of  such  things  as  these  a  man  can  write  nothing 
that  is  worth  the  reading.  The  traveler  who  desires  to  tell 
his  experience  of  North  America  must  write  of  people 
rather  than  of  things. 

As  I  have  said,  I  found  myself  instantly  involved  in  dis- 
cussions on  American  politics  and  the  bearing  of  England 
upon  those  politics.  "  What  do  you  think,  you  in  England 
— what  do  you  believe  will  be  the  upshot  of  this  war  ?" 
That  was  the  question  always  asked  in  those  or  other  words. 
"Secession,  certainly,"  I  always  said,  but  not  speaking  quite 
with  that  abruptness.  ''And  you  believe,  then,  that  the 
South  will  beat  the  North  ?"  I  explained  that  I  personally 
had  never  so  thought,  and  that  I  did  not  believe  that  to  be 
the  general  idea.  Men's  opinions  in  England,  however, 
were  too  divided  to  enable  me  to  say  that  there  was  any 
prevailing  conviction  on  the  matter.  My  own  impression 
was,  and  is,  that  the  North  will,  in  a  military  point  of  view, 
have  the  best  of  the  contest — will  beat  the  South  ;  but  that 
the  Northerners  will  not  prevent  secession,  let  their  success 
be  what  it  may.  Should  the  North  prevail  after  a  two  years' 
conflict,  the  North  will  not  admit  the  South  to  an  equal 
participation  of  good  things  with  themselves,  even  though 
each  separate  rebellious  State  should  return  suppliant,  like 
a  prodigal  son,  kneeling  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  each  wdth 
a  separate  rope  of  humiliation  round  its  neck.  Such  was 
my  idea  as  expressed  then,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  have 
since  had  much  cause  to  change  it. 

"  We  will  never  give  it  up,"  one  gentleman  said  to  me — > 
and,  indeed,  many  have  said  the  same — "  till  the  whole  ter- 
ritory is  again  united  from  the  Bay  to  the  Gulf.  It  is  im- 
possible that  we  should  allow  of  two  nationalities  within 
those  limits."  "And  do  you  think  it  possible,"  I  asked, 
"  that  you  should  receive  back  into  your  bosom  this  people 
which  you  now  hate  with  so  deep  a  hatred,  and  receive 
them  again  into  your  arms  as  brothers  on  equal  terms  ?  Is 
it  in  accordance  with  experience  that  a  conquered  people 


24 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


should  be  so  treated,  and  that,  too,  a  people  whose  every 
habit  of  life  is  at  variance  with  the  habits  of  their  presumed 
conquerors  ?  When  you  have  flogged  them  into  a  return 
of  fraternal  affection,  are  they  to  keep  their  slaves  or  are 
they  to  abolish  them  V  "No,"  said  my  friend,  "it  may  not 
be  practicable  to  put  those  rebellious  States  at  once  on  an 
equality  with  ourselves..  For  a  time  they  will  probably  be 
treated  as  the  Territories  are  now  treated."  (The  Territo- 
ries are  vast  outlying  districts  belonging  to  the  Union,  but 
not  as  yet  endowed  with  State  governments  or  a  participa- 
tion in  the  United  States  Congress.)  "For  a  time  they 
must,  perhaps,  lose  their  full  privileges  ;  but  the  Union  will 
be  anxious  to  readmit  them  at  the  earliest  possible  period." 
"  And  as  to  the  slaves  ?"  I  asked  again.  "  Let  them  emi- 
grate to  Liberia — back  to  their  own  country."  I  could  not 
say  that  I  thought  much  of  the  solution  of  the  difficulty. 
It  would,  I  suggested,  overtask  even  the  energy  of  America 
to  send  out  an  emigration  of  four  million  souls,  to  provide 
for  their  wants  in  a  new  and  uncultivated  country,  and  to 
provide,  after  that,  for  the  terrible  gap  made  in  the  labor 
market  of  the  Southern  States.  "  The  Israelites  went  back 
from  bondage,"  said  my  friend.  But  a  way  was  opened  for 
them  by  a  miracle  across  the  sea,  and  food  was  sent  to  them 
from  heaven,  and  they  had  among  them  a  Moses  for  a  leader, 
and  a  Joshua  to  fight  their  battles.  I  could  not  but  express 
my  fear  that  the  days  of  such  immigrations  were  over.  This 
plan  of  sending  back  the  negroes  to  Africa  did  not  reach 
me  only  from  one  or  from  two  mouths,  and  it  was  suggested 
by  men  whose  opinions  respecting  their  country  have  weight 
at  home  and  are  entitled  to  weight  abroad.  I  mention  this 
merely  to  show  how  insurmountable  would  be  the  difficulty 
of  preventing  secession,  let  which  side  win  that  may. 

"We  will  never  abandon  the  right  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi."  That,  in  all  such  arguments,  is  a  strong  point 
with  men  of  the  Northern  States — perhaps  the  point  to 
which  they  all  return  with  the  greatest  firmness.  It  is  that 
on  which  Mr.  Everett  insists  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the 
oration  which  he  made  in  New  York  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1861.  "  The  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi  Rivers,"  he  says, 
"  with  their  hundred  tributaries,  give  to  the  great  central 
basin  of  our  continent  its  character  and  destiny.  The  out- 
let of  this  system  lies  between  the  States  of  Tennessee  and 
Missouri,  of  Mississippi  and  Arkansas,  and  through  the 


COMMAND  OP  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 


25 


State  of  Louisiana.  The  ancient  province  so  called,  th? 
proudest  monument  of  the  mighty  monarch  whose  name  it 
bears,  passed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  France  to  that  of 
Spain  in  1*103.  Spain  coveted  it — not  that  she  might  fill 
it  with  prosperous  colonies  and  rising  States,  but  that  it 
might  stretch  as  a  broad  waste  barrier,  infested  with  warlike 
tribes,  between  the  Anglo-American  power  and  the  silver 
mines  of  Mexico.  With  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  the  fear  of  a  still  more  dangerous  neighbor  grew 
upon  Spain ;  and,  in  the  insane  expectation  of  checking  the 
progress  of  the  Union  westward,  she  threatened,  and  at 
times  attempted,  to  close  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  on 
the  rapidly-increasing  trade  of  the  West.  The  bare  sug- 
gestion of  such  a  policy  roused  the  population  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Ohio,  then  inconsiderable,  as  one  man.  Their 
confidence  in  Washington  scarcely  restrained  them  from 
rushing  to  the  seizure  of  New  Orleans,  when  the  treaty  of 
San  Lorenzo  El  Real,  in  1795,  stipulated  for  them  a  preca- 
rious right  of  navigating  the  noble  river  to  the  sea,  with  a 
right  of  deposit  at  New  Orleans.  This  subject  was  for 
years  the  turning-point  of  the  politics  of  the  West ;  and  it 
was  perfectly  well  understood  that,  sooner  or  later,  she  would 
be  content  with  nothing  less  than  the  sovereign  control  of 
the  mighty  stream  from  its  head-spring  to  its  outlet  in  the 
Gulf.    And  that  is  as  true  now  as  it  was  tlien.^^ 

This  is  well  put.  It  describes  with  force  the  desires,  am- 
bition, and  necessities  of  a  great  nation,  and  it  tells  with 
historical  truth  the  story  of  the  success  of  that  nation.  It 
was  a  great  thing  done  when  the  purchase  of  the  whole  of 
Louisiana  was  completed  by  the  United  States — that  cession 
by  France,  however,  having  been  made  at  the  instance  of 
Napoleon,  and  not  in  consequence  of  any  demand  made  by 
the  States.  The  district  then  called  Louisiana  included  the 
present  State  of  that  name  and  the  States  of  Missouri  and 
Arkansas — included  also  the  right  to  possess,  if  not  the  ab- 
solute possession  of,  all  that  enormous  expanse  of  country 
running  from  thence  back  to  the  Pacific :  a  huge  amount  of 
territory,  of  which  the  most  fertile  portion  is  watered  by 
the  Mississippi  and  its  vast  tributaries.  That  river  and 
those  tributaries  are  navigable  through  the  whole  center  of 
the  American  continent  up  to  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota. 
To  the  United  States  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  was, 
we  may  say,  indispensable  ;  and  to  the  States,  when  no 

3 


26 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


longer  united,  the  navigation  will  be  equally  indispensable. 
But  the  days  are  gone  when  any  country  such  as  Spain  was 
can  interfere  to  stop  the  highways  of  the  world  with  the  all 
but  avowed  intention  of  arresting  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion. It  may  be  that  the  North  and  the  South  can  never 
again  be  friends  as  the  component  parts  of  one  nation. 
Such,  I  take  it,  is  the  belief  of  all  politicians  in  Europe, 
and  of  many  of  those  who  live  across  the  water.  But  as 
separate  nations  they  may  yet  live  together  in  amity,  and 
share  between  them  the  great  water-ways  which  God  has 
given  them  for  their  enrichment.  The  Rhine  is  free  to 
Prussia  and  to  Holland.  The  Danube  is  not  closed  against 
Austria.  It  will  be  said  that  the  Danube  has  in  fact  been 
closed  against  Austria,  in  spite  of  treaties  to  the  contrary. 
But  the  faults  of  bad  and  weak  governments  are  made 
known  as  cautions  to  the  world,  and  not  as  facts  to  copy. 
The  free  use  of  the  waters  of  a  common  river  between  two 
nations  is  an  aGair  for  treaty ;  and  it  has  not  yet  come  to 
that  that  treaties  must  necessarily  be  null  and  void  through 
the  falseness  of  politicians. 

"And  what  will  England  do  for  cotton  ?  Is  it  not  the 
fact  that  Lord  John  Russell,  with  his  professed  neutrality, 
intends  to  express  sympathy  with  the  South — intends  to 
pave  the  way  for  the  advent  of  Southern  cotton  ?"  "  You 
ought  to  love  us,"  so  say  men  in  Boston,  "because  we  have 
been  with  you  in  heart  and  spirit  for  long,  long  years.  But 
your  trade  has  eaten  into  your  souls,  and  you  love  Ameri- 
can cotton  better  than  American  loyalty  and  American  fel- 
lowship." This  I  found  to  be  unfair,  and  in  what  politest 
language  I  could  use  I  said  so.  I  had  not  any  special 
knowledge  of  the  minds  of  English  statesmen  on  this  mat- 
ter;  but  I  knew  as  well  as  Americans  could  do  what  our 
statesmen  had  said  and  done  respecting  it.  That  cotton, 
if  it  came  from  the  South,  would  be  made  very  welcome  in 
Liverpool,  of  course  I  knew.  If  private  enterprise  could 
bring  it,  it  might  be  brought.  But  the  very  declaration 
made  by  Lord  John  Russell  was  the  surest  pledge  that 
England,  as  a  nation,  would  not  interfere  even  to  supply 
her  own  wants.  It  may  easily  be  imagined  what  eager 
words  all  this  would  bring  about ;  but  I  never  found  that 
eager  words  led  to  feelings  which  were  personally  hostile. 

All  the  world  has  heard  of  Newport,  in  Rhode  Island,  as 
being  the  Brighton,  and  Tenby,  and  Scarborough  of  New 


NEWPORT. 


England.  And  the  glory  of  Newport  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  Kcw  England,  but  is  shared  by  New  York  and 
Washington,  and  in  ordinary  years  by  the  extreme  South. 
It  is  the  habit  of  Americans  to  go  to  some  watering-place 
every  summer — that  is,  to  some  place  either  of  sea  water  or 
of  inland  waters.  This  is  done  much  in  England,  more  in 
Ireland  than  in  England,  but  I  think  more  in  the  States 
than  even  in  Ireland.  But  of  all  such  summer  haunts, 
Newport  is  supposed  to  be  in  many  ways  the  most  capti- 
vating. In  the  first  place,  it  is  certainly  the  most  fashion- 
able, and,  in  the  next  place,  it  is  said  to  be  the"  most  beau- 
tiful. We  decided  on  going  to  Newport — led  thither  by 
the  latter  reputation  rather  than  the  former.  As  we  were 
still  in  the  early  part  of  September,  we  expected  to  find  the 
place  full,  but  in  this  we  were  disappointed — disappointed, 
I  say,  rather  than  gratified,  although  a  crowded  house  at 
such  a  place  is  certainly  a  nuisance.  But  a  house  which  is 
prepared  to  make  up  six  hundred  beds,  and  which  is  called 
on  to  makeup  only  twenty-five,  becomes,  after  awhile,  some- 
what melancholy.  The  natural  depression  of  the  landlord 
communicates  itself  to  his  servants,  and  from  the  servants 
it  descends  to  the  twenty-five  guests,  who  wander  about  the 
long  passages  and  deserted  balconies  like  the  ghosts  of 
those  of  the  summer  visitors,  who  cannot  rest  quietly  in 
their  graves  at  home. 

In  England  we  know  nothing  of  hotels  prepared  for  six 
hundred  visitors,  all  of  whom  are  expected  to  live  in  com- 
mon. Domestic  architects  would  be  frightened  at  the  dimen- 
sions which  are  needed,  and  at  the  number  of  apartments 
which  are  required  to  be  clustered  under  one  roof.  We  went 
to  the  Ocean  Hotel  at  Newport,  and  fancied,  as  we  first 
entered  the  hall  under  a  veranda  as  high  as  the  house, 
and  made  our  way  into  the  passage,  that  wo  had  been  taken 
to  a  well-arranged  barrack.  ''Have  you  rooms?"  I  asked, 
as  a  man  always  does  ask  on  first  reaching  his  inn.  "  Kooras 
enough,"  the  clerk  said;  "we  have  only  fifty  here."  But 
that  fifty  dwindled  down  to  twenty-five  during  the  next  day 
or  two. 

We  were  a  melancholy  set,  the  ladies  appearing  to  be 
afflicted  in  this  way  worse  than  the  gentlemen,  on  account 
of  their  enforced  abstinence  from  tobacco.  What  can  twelve 
ladies  do  scattered  about  a  drawing-room,  so  called,  in- 
tended for  the  accommodation  of  two  hundred  ?  The  draw- 


28 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing-room  at  the  Ocean  Hotel,  Newport,  is  not  as  big  as 
Westminster  Hall,  but  would,  I  should  think,  make  a  very 
good  House  of  Commons  for  the  Britieli  nation.  Fancy 
the  feelings  of  a  lady  when  she  walks  into  such  a  room,  in- 
tending to  spend  her  evening  there,  and  finds  six  or  seven 
other  ladies  located  on  various  sofas  at  terrible  distances, 
all  strangers  to  her.  She  has  come  to  Newport  probably 
to  enjoy  herself;  and  as,  in  accordance  with  the  customs  of 
the  place,  she  has  dined  at  two,  she  has  nothing  before  her 
for  the  evening  but  the  society  of  that  huge,  furnished  cav- 
ern. Her  husband,  if  she  have  one,  or  her  father,  or  her 
lover,  has  probably  entered  the  room  with  her.  But  a  man 
has  never  the  courage  to  endure  such  a  position  long.  He 
sidles  out  with  some  muttered  excuse,  and  seeks  solace  with 
a  cigar.  The  lady,  after  half  an  hour  of  contemplation, 
creeps  silently  near  some  companion  in  the  desert,  and  sug- 
gests in  a  whisper  that  Newport  does  not  seem  to  be  very 
full  at  present. 

We  stayed  there  for  a  week,  and  were  very  melancholy; 
but  in  our  melancholy  we  still  talked  of  the  war.  Ameri- 
cans are  said  to  be  given  to  bragging,  and  it  is  a  sin  of 
which  I  cannot  altogether  acquit  them.  But  I  have  con- 
stantly been  surprised  at  hearing  the  Northern  men  speak 
of  their  own  military  achievements  with  anything  but  self- 
praise.  "  We've  been  whipped,  sir ;  and  we  shall  be  whipped 
again  before  we've  done ;  uncommon  well  whipped  we  shall 
be."  "We  began  cowardly,  and  were  afraid  to  send  our 
own  regiments  through  one  of  our  own  cities."  This  alluded 
to  a  demand  that  had  been  made  on  the  Government  that 
troops  going  to  Washington  should  not  be  sent  through 
Baltimore,  because  of  the  strong  feeling  for  rebellion  which 
was  known  to  exist  in  that  city.  President  Lincoln  com- 
plied with  this  request,  thinking  it  well  to  avoid  a  collision 
between  the  mob  and  the  soldiers.  "We  began  cowardly, 
and  now  we're  going  on  cowardly,  and  darn't  attack  them. 
Well;  when  we've  been  whipped  often  enough,  then  we 
shall  learn  the  trade."  Now  all  this — and  I  heard  much 
of  such  a  nature — could  not  be  called  boasting.  But  yet 
with  it  all  there  was  a  substratum  of  confidence.  I  have 
heard  Northern  gentlemen  complaining  of  the  President, 
complaining  of  all  his  ministers,  one  after  another,  com- 
plaining of  the  contractors  who  were  robbing  the  army,  of 
the  commanders  who  did  not  know  how  to  command  the 


HOTEL  DRAWING-ROOMS. 


29 


army,  and  of  the  army  itself,  which  did  not  know  how  to 
obey;  but  I  do  not  remember  that  I  have  discussed  the 
matter  with  any  Northerner  who  would  admit  a  doubt  as  to 
ultimate  success. 

We  were  certainly  rather  melancholy  at  Newport,  and  the 
empty  house  may  perhaps  have  given  its  tone  to  the  discus- 
sions on  the  war.  I  confess  that  I  could  not  stand  the 
drawing-room  —  the  ladies'  drawing-room,  as  such  like 
rooms  are  always  called  at  the  hotels — and  that  I  basely 
deserted  my  wife.  I  could  not  stand  it  either  here  or  else- 
where, and  it  seemed  to  me  that  other  husbands — ay,  and 
even  lovers — were  as  hard  pressed  as  myself.  I  protest 
that  there  is  no  spot  on  the  earth's  surface  so  dear  to  me  as 
my  own  drawing-room,  or  rather  my  wife's  drawing-room, 
at  home ;  that  I  am  not  a  man  given  hugely  to  clubs,  but  one 
rather  rejoicing  in  the  rustle  of  petticoats.  I  like  to  have 
women  in  the  same  room  with  me.  But  at  these  hotels  I 
found  myself  driven  away — propelled  as  it  were  by  some 
unknown  force — to  absent  myself  from  the  feminine  haunts. 
Anything  was  more  palatable  than  them,  even  ''liquoring 
up"  at  a  nasty  bar,  or  smoking  in  a  comfortless  reading- 
room  among  a  deluge  of  American  newspapers.  And  I 
protest  also — hoping  as  I  do  so  that  I  may  say  much  in 
this  book  to  prove  the  truth  of  such  protestation  —  that 
this  comes  from  no  fault  of  the  American  women.  They 
are  as  lovely  as  our  own  women.  Taken  generally,  they 
are  better  instructed,  though  perhaps  not  better  educated. 
They  are  seldom  troubled  with  mauvaise  honte;  I  do  not 
say  it  in  irony,  but  begging  that  the  words  may  be  taken  at 
their  proper  meaning.  They  can  always  talk,  and  very 
often  can  talk  well.  But  when  assembled  together  in  these 
vast,  cavernous,  would-be  luxurious,  but  in  truth  horribly 
comfortless  hotel  drawing-rooms,  they  are  unapproachable. 
I  have  seen  lovers,  whom  I  have  known  to  be  lovers,  unable 
to  remain  five  minutes  in  the  same  cavern  with  their  beloved 
ones. 

And  then  the  music  I  There  is  always  a  piano  in  a  hotel 
drawing-room,  on  which,  of  course,  some  one  of  the  forlorn 
ladies  is  generally  employed.  I  do  not  suppose  that  these 
pianos  are  in  fact,  as  a  rule,  louder  and  harsher,  more  vio- 
lent and  less  musical,  than  other  instruments  of  the  kind. 
They  seem  to  be  so,  but  that,  I  take  it,  arises  from  the  ex- 
ceptional mental  depression  of  those  who  have  to  listen  to 

3* 


30 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


them.  Then  the  ladies,  or  probably  some  one  lady,  will 
sing,  and  as  she  hears  her  own  voice  ring  and  echo  through 
the  lofty  corners  and  round  the  empty  walls,  she  is  surprised 
at  her  own  force,  and  with  increased  efforts  sings  louder 
and  still  louder.  She  is  tempted  to  fancy  that  she  is  sud- 
denly gifted  with  some  power  of  vocal  melody  unknown  to 
her  before,  and,  filled  with  the  glory  of  her  own  perform- 
ance, shouts  till  the  whole  house  rings.  At  such  moments 
she  at  least  is  happy,  if  no  one  else  is  so.  Looking  at  the 
general  sadness  of  her  position,  who  can  grudge  her  such 
happiness  ? 

And  then  the  children — babies,  I  should  say  if  I  were 
speaking  of  English  bairns  of  their  age;  but  seeing  that 
they  are  Americans,  I  hardly  dare  to  call  them  children. 
The  actual  age  of  these  perfectly-civilized  and  highly-edu- 
cated beings  may  be  from  three  to  four.  One  will  often 
see  five  or  six  such  seated  at  the  long  dinner-table  of  the 
hotel,  breakfasting  and  dining  with  their  elders,  and  going 
through  the  ceremony  with  all  the  gravity,  and  more  than 
all  the  decorum,  of  their  grandfathers.  When  I  was  three 
years  old  I  had  not  yet,  as  I  imagine,  been  promoted  be- 
yond a  silver  spoon  of  my  own  wherewith  to  eat  my  bread 
and  milk  in  the  nursery;  and  I  feel  assured  that  I  was 
under  the  immediate  care  of  a  nursemaid,  as  I  gobbled  up 
my  minced  mutton  mixed  with  potatoes  and  gravy.  But  at 
hotel  life  in  the  States  the  adult  infant  lisps  to  the  waiter 
for  everything  at  table,  handles  his  fish  with  epicurean  deli- 
cacy, is  choice  in  his  selection  of  pickles,  very  particular 
that  his  beef-steak  at  breakfast  shall  be  hot,  and  is  instant  in 
his  demand  for  fresh  ice  in  his  water.  But  perhaps  his,  or 
in  this  case  her,  retreat  from  the  room  when  the  meal  is 
over,  is  the  chef-d''ceuvre  of  the  whole  performance.  The 
little,  precocious,  full-blown  beauty  of  four  signifies  that  she 
has  completed  her  meal — or  is  ''through"  her  dinner,  as  she 
would  express  it — by  carefully  extricating  herself  from  the 
napkin  which  has  been  tucked  around  her.  Then  the  waiter, 
ever  attentive  to  her  movements,  draws  back  the  chair  on 
which  she  is  seated,  and  the  young  lady  glides  to  the  floor. 
A  little  girl  in  Old  England  would  scramble  down,  but  little 
girls  in  New  England  never  scramble.  Her  father  and 
mother,  who  are  no  more  than  her  chief  ministers,  walk 
before  her  out  of  the  saloon,  and  then  she — swims  after 
them.    But  swimming  is  not  the  proper  word.    Fishes,  in 


SEA-BATinNG. 


n 


making  their  way  through  the  water,  assist,  or  ratlier  im- 
pede, their  motion  with  no  dorsal  wriggle.  No  animal  taught 
to  move  directly  by  its  Creator  adopts  a  gait  so  useless,  and 
at  the  same  time  so  graceless.  Many  women,  having  re- 
ceived their  lessons  in  walking  from  a  less  eligible  instructor, 
do  move  in  this  way,  and  such  women  this  unfortunate  lit- 
tle lady  has  been  instructed  to  copy.  The  peculiar  step  to 
which  I  allude  is  to  be  seen  often  on  the  boulevards  in 
Paris.  It  is  to  be  seen  more  often  in  second-rate  French 
towns,  and  among  fourth-rate  French  women.  Of  all  signs 
in  women  betokening  vulgarity^  bad  taste,  and  aptitude  to 
bad  morals,  it  is  the  surest.  And  this  is  the  gait  of  going 
which  American  mothers — some  American  mothers  I  should 
say — love  to  teach  their  daughters!  As  a  comedy  at  a 
hotel  it  is  very  delightful,  but  in  private  life  I  should  object 
to  it. 

To  me  Newport  could  never  be  a  place  charming  by  rea- 
son of  its  own  charms.  That  it  is  a  very  pleasant  place 
when  it  is  full  of  people  and  the  people  are  in  spirits  and 
happy,  I  do  not  doubt.  But  then  the  visitors  would  bring, 
as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  the  pleasantness  with  them.  The 
coast  is  not  fine.  To  those  who  know  the  best  portions  of 
the  coast  of  Wales  or  Cornwall — or  better  still,  the  western 
coast  of  Ireland,  of  Clare  and  Kerry  for  instance — it  would 
not  be  in  any  way  remarkable.  It  is  by  no  means  equal  to 
Dieppe  or  Biarritz,  and  not  to  be  talked  of  in  the  same 
breath  with  Spezzia.  The  hotels,  too,  are  all  built  away 
from  the  sea ;  so  that  one  cannot  sit  and  watch  the  play  of 
the  waves  from  one's  windows.  Nor  are  there  pleasant 
rambling  paths  down  among  the  rocks,  and  from  one  short 
strand  to  another.  There  is  excellent  bathing  for  those 
who  like  bathing  on  shelving  sand.  I  don't.  The  spot  is 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  hotels,  and  to  this  the  bathers 
are  carried  in  omnibuses.  Till  one  o'clock  ladies  bathe, 
which  operation,  however,  does  not  at  all  militate  against 
the  bathing  of  men,  but  rather  necessitates  it  as  regards 
those  men  who  have  ladies  with  them.  For  here  ladies  and 
gentlemen  bathe  in  decorous  dresses,  and  are  very  polite  to 
each  other.  I  must  say  that  I  think  the  ladies  have  the 
best  of  it.  My  idea  of  sea  bathing,  for  my  own  gratifica- 
tion, is  not  compatible  with  a  full  suit  of  clothing.  I  own 
that  my  tastes  are  vulgar,  and  perhaps  indecent ;  but  I  love 
to  jump  into  the  deep,  clear  sea  from  off  a  rock,  and  I  love 


32 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


to  be  hampered  by  no  outward  impediments  as  I  do  so. 
For  ordinary  bathers,  for  all  ladies,  and  for  men  less  savage 
in  their  instincts  than  1  am,  the  bathing  at  Newport  is  very 
good. 

The  private  houses — villa  residences  as  they  would  be 
termed  by  an  auctioneer  in  England — are  excellent.  Many 
of  them  are,  in  fact,  large  mansions,  and  are  surrounded 
with  grounds  which,  as  the  shrubs  grow  up,  will  be  very 
beautiful.  Some  have  large,  well-kept  lawns,  stretching 
down  to  the  rocks,  and  these,  to  my  taste,  give  the  charm 
to  Newport.  They  extend  about  two  miles  along  the  coast. 
Should  my  lot  have  made  me  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
I  should  have  had  no  objection  to  become  the  possessor  of 
one  of  these  "villa  residences;"  but  I  do  not  think  that 
I  should  have  "  gone  in"  for  hotel  life  at  Newport. 

We  hired  saddle-horses,  and  rode  out  nearly  the  length 
of  the  island.  It  was  all  very  well,  but  there  was  little  in 
it  remarkable  either  as  regards  cultivation  or  scenery.  We 
found  nothing  that  it  would  be  possible  either  to  describe 
or  remember.  The  Americans  of  the  United  States  have 
had  time  to  build  and  populate  vast  cities,  but  they  have 
not  yet  had  time  to  surround  themselves  with  pretty  scenery. 
Outlying  grand  scenery  is  given  by  nature ;  but  the  pretti- 
ness  of  home  scenery  is  a  work  of  art.  It  comes  from  the 
thorough  draining  of  land,  from  the  planting  and  subse- 
quent thinning  of  trees,  from  the  controlling  of  waters,  and 
constant  use  of  minute  patches  of  broken  land.  In  another 
hundred  years  or  so,  Rhode  Island  may  be,  perhaps,  as 
pretty  as  the  Isle  of  Wight.  The  horses  which  we  got 
were  not  good.  They  were  unhandy  and  badly  mouthed, 
and  that  which  my  wife  rode  was  altogether  ignorant  of  the 
art  of  walking.  We  hired  them  from  an  Englishman  who 
had  established  himself  at  New  York  as  a  riding-master  for 
ladies,  and  who  had  come  to  Newport  for  the  season  on  the 
same  business.  He  complained  to  me  with  much  bitterness 
of  the  saddle-horses  which  came  in  his  way  —  of  course 
thinking  that  it  was  the  special  business  of  a  country  to 
produce  saddle-horses,  as  I  think  it  the  special  business  of 
a  country  to  produce  pens,  ink,  and  paper  of  good  qual- 
ity. According  to  him,  riding  has  not  yet  become  an  Amer- 
ican art,  and  hence  the  awkwardness  of  American  horses. 
''Lord  bless  you,  sir!  they  don't  give  an  animal  a  chance 
of  a  mouth."  In  this  he  alluded  only,  I  presume,  to  saddle- 


RHODE  ISLAND. 


33 


horses.  I  know  nothing  of  the  trotting  horses,  but  I  sliould 
imagine  that  a  fine  mouth  must  be  an  essential  requisite  for 
a  trotting  match  in  harness.  As  regards  riding  at  New- 
port, we  were  not  tempted  to  repeat  the  experiment.  The 
number  of  carriages  which  we  saw  there — remembering  as 
I  did  that  the  place  was  comparatively  empty — and  their 
general  smartness,  surprised  me  very  much.  It  seemed  that 
every  lady,  with  a  house  of  her  own,  had  also  her  own  car- 
riage. These  carriages  were  always  open,  and  the  law  of 
the  land  imperatively  demands  that  the  occupants  shall 
cover  their  knees  with  a  worked  worsted  apron  of  brilliant 
colors.  These  aprons  at  first  I  confess  seemed  tawdry; 
but  the  eye  soon  becomes  used  to  bright  colors,  in  carriage 
aprons  as  well  as  in  architecture,  and  I  soon  learned  to  like 
them. 

Rhode  Island,  as  the  State  is  usually  called,  is  the  small- 
est State  in  the  Union.  I  may  perhaps  best  show  its  dis- 
parity to  other  States  by  saying  that  New  York  extends 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  north  to  south,  and 
the  same  distance  from  east  to  west;  whereas  the  State 
called  Rhode  Island  is  about  forty  miles  long  by  twenty 
broad,  independently  of  certain  small  islands.  It  would,  in 
fact,  not  form  a  considerable  addition  if  added  on  to  many 
of  the  other  States.  Nevertheless,  it  has  all  the  same 
powers  of- self-government  as  are  possessed  by  such  nation- 
alities as  the  States  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  and 
sends  two  Senators  to  the  Senate  at  Washington,  as  do 
those  enormous  States.  Small  as  the  State  is,  Rhode  Island 
itself  forms  but  a  small  portion  of  it.  The  authorized  and 
proper  name  of  the  State  is  Providence  Plantation  and 
Rhode  Island.  Roger  Williams  was  the  first  founder  of 
the  colony,  and  he  established  himself  on  the  mainland  at  a 
spot  which  he  called  Providence.  Here  now  stands  the  City 
of  Providence,  the  chief  town  of  the  State;  and  a  thriving, 
comfortable  town  it  seems  to  be,  full  of  banks,  fed  by  rail- 
ways and  steamers,  and  going  ahead  quite  as  quickly  as 
Roger  Williams  could  in  his  fondest  hopes  have  desired. 

Rhode  Island,  as  I  have  said,  has  all  the  attributes  of 
government  in  common  with  her  stouter  and  more  famous 
sisters.  She  has  a  governor,  and  an  upper  house  and  a 
lower  house  of  legislature ;  and  she  is  somewhat  fantastic 
in  the  use  of  these  constitutional  powers,  for  she  calls  on 
them  to  sit  now  in  one  town  and  now  in  another.  Provi- 


34 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


dence  is  the  capital  of  the  State;  but  the  Rhode  Island 
parliament  sits  sometimes  at  Providence  and  sometimes  at 
Newport.  At  stated  times  also  it  has  to  collect  itself  at 
Bristol,  and  at  other  stated  times  at  Kingston,  and  at  others 
at  East  Greenwich.  Of  all  legislative  assemblies  it  is  the 
most  peripatetic.  Universal  suffrage  does  not  absolutely 
prevail  in  this  State,  a  certain  property  qualification  being 
necessary  to  confer  a  right  to  vote  even  for  the  State  rep- 
resentatives. I  should  think  it  would  be  well  for  all  parties 
if  the  whole  State  could  be  swallowed  up  by  Massachu- 
setts or  by  Connecticut,  either  of  which  lie  conveniently  for 
the  feat;  but  I  presume  that  any  suggestion  of  such  a 
nature  would  be  regarded  as  treason  by  the  men  of  Provi- 
dence Plantation. 

We  returned  back  to  Boston  by  Attleborough,  a  town  at 
which,  in  ordinary  times,  the  whole  population  is  supported 
by  the  jewelers'  trade.  It  is  a  place  with  a  specialty,  upon 
which  specialty  it  has  thriven  well  and  become  a  town. 
But  the  specialty  is  one  ill  adapted  for  times  of  w^ar ;  and 
we  were  assured  that  the  trade  was  for  the  present  at  an 
end.  What  man  could  now-a-days  buy  jewels,  or  even  what 
woman,  seeing  that  everything  would  be  required  for  the 
war  ?  I  do  not  say  that  such  abstinence  from  luxury  has 
been  begotten  altogether  by  a  feeling  of  patriotism.  The 
direct  taxes  which  all  Americans  will  now  be  called  on  to 
pay,  have  had  and  will  have  much  to  do  with  such  absti- 
nence. In  the  mean  time  the  poor  jewelers  of  Attleborough 
have  gone  altogether  to  the  wall. 


THE  LAND  OF  YANKEES. 


35 


CHAPTER  III. 

MAINE,  NEW  HAMPSHIRE,  AND  VERMONT. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  assume  that  all  the  world  in  Eng- 
land knows  that  that  portion  of  the  United  States  called 
New  England  consists  of  the  six  States  of  Maine,  New 
Hampshire, Yermont,  Massachusetts, Connecticut,  and  Rhode 
Island.  This  is  especially  the  land  of  Yankees,  and  none 
can  properly  be  called  Yankees  but  those  who  belong  to 
New  England.  I  have  named  the  States  as  nearly  as  may 
be  in  order  from  the  north  downward.  Of  Rhode  Island, 
the  smallest  State  in  the  Union,  I  have  already  said  what 
little  I  have  to  say.  Of  these  six  States  Boston  may  be 
called  the  capital.  Not  that  it  is  so  in  any  civil  or  political 
sense;  it  is  simply  the  capital  of  Massachusetts.  But  as  it 
is  the  Athens  of  the  Western  world ;  as  it  was  the  cradle 
of  American  freedom ;  as  everybody  of  course  knows  that 
into  Boston  harbor  was  thrown  the  tea  which  George  III. 
would  tax,  and  that  at  Boston,  on  account  of  that  and  sim- 
ilar taxes,  sprang  up  the  new  revolution ;  and  as  it  has 
grown  in  wealth,  and  fame,  and  size  beyond  other  towns  in 
New  England,  it  may  be  allowed  to  us  to  regard  it  as  the 
capital  of  these  six  Northern  States,  without  guilt  of  lese 
majeste  toward  the  other  five.  To  me,  I  confess  this  North- 
ern division  of  our  once-unruly  colonies  is,  and  always  has 
been,  the  dearest.  I  am  no  Puritan  myself,  and  fancy 
that,  had  I  lived  in  the  days  of  the  Puritans,  I  should  have 
been  anti-Puritan  to  the  full  extent  of  my  capabilities. 
But  I  should  have  been  so  through  ignorance  and  prejudice, 
and  actuated  by  that  love  of  existing  rights  and  wrongs 
which  men  call  loyalty.  If  the  Canadas  were  to  rebel  now, 
I  should  be  for  putting  down  the  Canadians  with  a  strong 
hand;  but  not  the  less  have  I  an  idea  that  it  will  become 
the  Canadas  to  rebel  and  assert  their  independence  at  some 
future  period,  unless  it  be  conceded  to  them  without  such 
rebellion.    Who,  on  looking  back,  can  now  refuse  to  admire 


36 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  political  aspirations  of  the  English  Puritans,  or  decline 
to  acknowledge  the  beauty  and  fitness  of  what  they  did?  It 
was  by  them  that  these  States  of  New  England  were  col- 
onized. They  came  hither,  stating  themselves  to  be  pil- 
grims, and  as  such  they  first  placed  their  feet  on  that  hal- 
lowed rock  at  Plymouth,  on  the  shore  of  Massachusetts. 
They  came  here  driven  by  no  thirst  of  conquest,  by  no 
greed  for  gold,  dreaming  of  no  Western  empire  such  as 
Cortez  had  achieved  and  Raleigh  had  meditated.  They 
desired  to  earn  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  brow,  wor- 
shiping God  according  to  . their  own  lights,  living  in  har- 
mony under  their  own  laws,  and  feeling  that  no  master 
could  claim  a  right  to  put  a  heel  upon  their  necks.  And  be 
it  remembered  that  here  in  England,  in  those  days,  earthly 
masters  were  still  apt  to  put  their  heels  on  the  necks  of 
men.  The  Star  Chamber  was  gone,  but  Jeffreys  had  not  yet 
reigned.  What  earthly  aspirations  were  ever  higher  than 
these,  or  more  manly  ?  And  what  earthly  efforts  ever  led  to 
grander  results  ? 

We  determined  to  go  to  Portland,  in  Maine,  from  thence 
to  the  White  Mountains  in  Jvew  Hampshire — the  American 
Alps,  as  they  love  to  call  them  —  and  then  on  to  Que- 
bec, and  up  through  the  two  Canadas  to  Niagara;  and  this 
route  we  followed.  From  Boston  to  Portland  we  traveled 
by  railroad — the  carriages  on  which  are  in  America  always 
called  cars.  And  here  I  beg,  once  for  all,  to  enter  my  pro- 
test loudly  against  the  manner  in  which  these  conveyances 
are  conducted.  The  one  grand  fault  —  there  are  other 
smaller  faults — but  the  one  grand  fault  is  that  they  admit 
but  one  class.  Two  reasons  for  this  are  given.  The  first 
is  that  the  finances  of  the  companies  will  not  admit  of  a 
divided  accommodation;  and  the  second  is  that  the  repub- 
lican nature  of  the  people  will  not  brook  a  superior  or 
aristocratic  classification  of  traveling.  As  regards  the 
first,  I  do  not  in  the  least  believe  in  it.  If  a  more  expensive 
manner  of  railway  traveling  will  pay  in  England,  it  would 
surely  do  so  here.  Were  a  better  class  of  carriages  organ- 
ized, as  large  a  portion  of  the  population  would  use  them 
in  the  United  States  as  in  any  country  in  Europe.  And  it 
seems  to  be  evident  that  in  arranging  that  there  shall  be 
only  one  rate  of  traveling,  the  price  is  enhanced  on  poor 
travelers  exactly  in  proportion  as  it  is  made  cheap  to  those 
who  are  not  poor.    For  the  poorer  classes,  traveling  iu 


RAILWAY  CARS. 


3t 


America  is  by  no  means  cheap,  the  averao^e  rate  being,  as 
far  as  I  can  judge,  fully  three  halfpence  a  mile.  It  is  mani- 
fest that  dearer  rates  for  one  class  would  allow  of  cheaper 
rates  for  the  other;  and  that  in  this  manner  general  travel- 
ing would  be  encouraged  and  increased. 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  the  question  of  expenditure 
has  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  I  conceive  it  to  be  true  that 
the  railways  are  afraid  to  put  themselves  at  variance  with 
the  general  feeling  of  the  people.  If  so,  the  railways  may 
be  right.  But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  the  general  feeling 
of  the  people  must  in  such  case  be  wrong.  Such  a  feeling 
argues  a  total  mistake  as  to  the  nature  of  that  liberty  and 
equality  for  the  security  of  which  the  people  are  so  anxious, 
and  that  mistake  the  very  one  which  has  made  shipwreck 
so  many  attempts  at  freedom  in  other  countries.  It  argues 
that  confusion  between  social  and  political  equality  which 
has  led  astray  multitudes  who  have  longed  for  liberty  fer- 
vently, but  who  have  not  thought  of  it  carefully.  If  a  first- 
class  railway  carriage  should  Ibe  held  as  offensive,  so  should 
a  first-class-house,  or  a  first-class  horse,  or  a  first-class 
dinner.  But  first-class  houses,  first-class  horses,  and  first- 
class  dinners  are  very  rife  in  America.  Of  course  it  may 
be  said  that  the  expenditure  shown  in  these  last-named 
objects  is  private  expenditure,  and  cannot  be  controlled; 
and  that  railway  traveling  is  of  a  public  nature,  and  can  be 
made  subject  to  public  opinion.  But  the  fault  is  in  that 
public  opinion  which  desires  to  control  matters  of  this 
nature.  Such  an  arrangement  partakes  of  all  the  vice  of  a 
sumptuary  law,  and  sumptuary  laws  are  in  their  very  es- 
sence mistakes.  It  is  well  that  a  man  should  always  have 
all  for  which  he  is  willing  to  pay.  If  he  desires  and  obtains 
more  than  is  good  for  him,  the  punishment,  and  thus  also 
the  preventive,  will  come  from  other  sources. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  American  cars  are  good  enough 
for  all  purposes.  The  seats  are  not  very  hard,  and  the 
room  for  sitting  is  sufficient.  Nevertheless  I  deny  that  they 
are  good  enough  for  all  purposes.  They  are  very  long, 
and  to  enter  them  and  find  a  place  often  requires  a  struggle 
and  almost  a  fight.  There  is  rarely  any  person  to  tell  a 
stranger  which  car  he  should  enter.  One  never  meets  an 
uncivil  or  unruly  man,  but  the  women  of  the  lower  ranks 
are  not  courteous.  American  ladies  love  to  lie  at  ease  in 
their  carriages,  as  thoroughly  as  do  our  women  in  Hyde 

4 


38 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Park;  and  to  those  who  are  used  to  such  luxury,  traveling 
by  railroad  in  their  own  country  must  be  grievous.  I  would 
not  wish  to  be  thought  a  Sybarite  myself,  or  to  be  held  as 
complaining  because  I  have  been  compelled  to  give  up  my 
seat  to  women  with  babies  and  bandboxes  who  have  ac- 
cepted the  courtesy  with  very  scanty  grace.  I  have  borne 
worse  things  than  these,  and  have  roughed  it  much  in  my 
days,  from  want  of  means  and  other  reasons.  Nor  am  I 
yet  so  old  but  what  I  can  rough  it  still.  Nevertheless  I 
like  to  see  things  as  well  done  as  is  practicable,  and  rail- 
way traveling  in  the  States  is  not  well  done.  I  feel  bound 
to  say  as  much  as  this,  and  now  I  have  said  it,  once  for 
all. 

Few  cities,  or  localities  for  cities,  have  fairer  natural 
advantages  than  Portland;  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the 
people  of  Portland  have  done  much  in  turning  them  to 
account.  This  town  is  not  the  capital  of  the  State  in  a 
political  point  of  view.  Augusta,  which  is  farther  to  the 
north,  on  the  Kennebec  River,  is  the  seat  of  the  State  gov- 
ernment for  Maine.  It  is  very  generally  the  case  that  the 
States  do  not  hold  their  legislatures  and  carry  on  their  gov- 
ernment at  their  chief  towns.  Augusta  and  not  Portland 
is  the  capital  of  Maine.  Of  the  State  of  New  York,  Al- 
bany is  the  capital,  and  not  the  city  which  bears  the  State's 
name.  And  of  Pennsylvania,  Harrisburg  and  not  Phila- 
delphia is  the  capital.  I  think  the  idea  has  been  that  old- 
fashioned  notions  were  bad  in  that  they  were  old  fash- 
ioned ;  and  that  a  new  people,  bound  by  no  prejudices,  might 
certainly  make  improvement  by  choosing  for  themselves 
new  ways.  If  so,  the  American  politicians  have  not  been 
the  first  in  the  world  who  have  thought  that  any  change 
must  be  a  change  for  the  better.  The  assigned  reason  is 
the  centrical  position  of  the  selected  political  capitals  ;  but 
I  have  generally  found  the  real  commercial  capital  to  be 
easier  of  access  than  the  smaller  town  in  which  the  two 
legislative  houses  are  obliged  to  collect  themselves. 

What  must  be  the  natural  excellence  of  the  harbor  of 
Portland,  will  be  understood  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that 
the  Great  Eastern  can  enter  it  at  all  times,  and  that  it  cau 
lay  along  the  wharves  at  any  hour  of  the  tide.  The  wharves 
which  have  been  prepared  for  her — and  of  which  I  will  say 
a  word  further  by-and-by — are  joined  to,  and  in  fact  are  a 
portion  of,  the  station  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway,  which 


PORTLAND. 


S9 


runs  from  Portland  up  to  Canada.  So  that  passengers 
landing  at  Portland  out  of  a  vessel  so  large  even  as  the 
Great  Eastern  can  walk  at  once  on  shore,  and  goods  can 
be  passed  on  to  the  railway  without  any  of  the  cost  of  re- 
moval. I  will  not  say  that  there  is  no  other  harbor  in  the 
world  that  would  allow  of  this,  but  I  do  not  know  any  other 
that  would  do  so. 

From  Portland  a  line  of  railway,  called  as  a  whole  by 
the  name  of  the  Canada  Grand  Trunk  Line,  runs  across  the 
State  of  Maine,  through  the  northern  parts  of  New  Hamp- 
shire and  Yermont,  to  Montreal,  a  branch  striking  from 
Richmond,  a  little  within  the  limits  of  Canada,  to  Quebec, 
and  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Riviere  du  Loup.  The 
main  line  is  continued  from  Montreal,  through  Upper  Can- 
ada to  Toronto,  and  from  thence  to  Detroit  in  the  State  of 
Michigan.  The  total  distance  thus  traversed  is,  in  a  direct 
line,  about  900  miles.  From  Detroit  there  is  railway  com- 
munications through  the  immense  Northwestern  States  of 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Illinois,  than  which  perhaps  the 
surface  of  the  globe  alTords  no  finer  districts  for  purposes 
of  agriculture.  The  produce  of  the  two  Canadas  must  be 
poured  forth  to  the  Eastern  world,  and  the  men  of  the 
JEastern  world  must  throng  into  these  lands  by  means  of 
this  railroad,  and,  as  at  present  arranged,  through  the  har- 
bor of  Portland.  At  present  the  line  has  been  opened,  and 
they  who  have  opened  are  sorely  suffering  in  pocket  for 
what  they  have  done.  The  question  of  the  railway  is  rather 
one  applying  to  Canada  than  to  the  State  of  Maine,  and  I 
will  therefore  leave  it  for  the  present. 

But  the  Great  Eastern  has  never  been  to  Portland,  and 
as  far  as  I  know  has  no  intention  of  going  there.  She  was, 
I  believe,  built  with  that  object.  At  any  rate,  it  was  pro- 
claimed during  her  building  that  such  was  her  destiny,  and 
the  Portlanders  believed  it  with  a  perfect  faith.  They  went 
to  work  and  built  wharves  expressly  for  her;  two  wharves 
prepared  to  fit  her  two  gangways,  or  ways  of  exit  and  en- 
trance. They  built  a  huge  hotel  to  receive  her  passengers. 
They  prepared  for  her  advent  with  a  full  conviction  that  a 
millennium  of  trade  was  about  to  be  wafted  to  their  happy 
port.  "  Sir,  the  town  has  expended  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars  in  expectation  of  that  ship,  and  that  ship  has  de- 
ceived us."  So  was  the  matter  spoken  of  to  me  by  an  in- 
telligent Portlander.    I  explained  to  that  intelligent  gen- 


40 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tleman  that  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  would  go  a  very 
little  way  toward  making  up  the  loss  which  the  ill-fortuned 
vessel  had  occasioned  on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  He 
did  not  in  words  express  gratification  at  this  information, 
but  he  looked  it.  The  matter  was  as  it  were  a  partnership 
without  deed  of  contract  between  the  Portlanders  and  the 
shareholders  of  the  vessel,  and  the  Portlanders,  though  they 
also  have  suffered  their  losses,  have  not  had  the  worst  of  it. 

But  there  are  still  good  days  in  store  for  the  town. 
Though  the  Great  Eastern  has  not  gone  there,  other  ships 
from  Europe,  more  profitable  if  less  in  size,  must  eventually 
find  their  way  thither.  At  present  the  Canada  line  of 
packets  runs  to  Portland  only  during  those  months  in  which 
it  is  shut  out  from  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Quebec  by  ice. 
But  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Quebec  cannot  offer  the  advant- 
ages which  Portland  enjoys,  and  that  big  hotel  and  those 
new  wharves  will  not  have  been  built  in  vain. 

I  have  said  that  a  good  time  is  coming,  but  I  would  by 
no  means  wish  to  signify  that  the  present  times  in  Portland 
are  bad.  So  far  from  it  that  I  doubt  whether  I  ever  saw  a 
town  with  more  evident  signs  of  prosperity.  It  has  about 
it  every  mark  of  ample  means,  and  no  mark  of  poverty.  It 
contains  about  21,000  people,  and  for  that  population  covers 
a  very  large  space  of  ground.  The  streets  are  broad  and 
well  built,  the  main  streets  not  running  in  those  absolutely 
straight  parallels  which  are  so  common  in  American  towns, 
and  are  so  distressing  to  English  eyes  and  English  feelings. 
All  these,  except  the  streets  devoted  exclusively  to  business, 
are  shaded  on  both  sides  by  trees,  generally,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  by  the  beautiful  American  elm,  whose  drooping 
boughs  have  all  the  grace  of  the  willow  without  its  fantas- 
tic melancholy.  What  the  poorer  streets  of  Portland  may 
be  like,  I  cannot  say.  I  saw  no  poor  street.  But  in  no 
town  of  30,000  inhabitants  did  I  ever  see  so  many  houses 
which  must  require  an  expenditure  of  from  six  to  eight  hun^ 
dred  a  year  to  maintain  them. 

The  place,  too,  is  beautifully  situated.  It  is  on  a  long 
promontory,  which  takes  the  shape  of  a  peninsula,  for  the 
neck  which  joins  it  to  the  main-land  is  not  above  half  a  mile 
across.  But  though  the  town  thus  stands  out  into  the  sea, 
it  is  not  exposed  and  bleak.  The  harbor,  again,  is  sur- 
rounded by  land,  or  so  guarded  and  locked  by  islands  as  to 
form  a  series  of  salt-water  lakes  running  round  the  town. 


MAINE  LIQUOR  LAW. 


41 


Of  those  islands  there  are,  of  course,  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five.  Travelers  who  write  their  travels  are  constantly 
called  upon  to  record  that  number,  so  that  it  may  now  be 
considered  as  a  superlative  in  local  phraseology,  signifying 
a  very  great  many  indeed.  The  town  stands  between  two 
hills,  the  suburbs  or  outskirts  running  up  on  to  each  of  them. 
The  one  looking  out  toward  the  sea  is  called  Mouutjoy, 
though  the  obstinate  Americans  will  write  it  Munjoy  on 
their  maps.  From  thence  the  view  out  to  the  harbor  and 
beyond  the  harbor  to  the  islands  is,  I  may  not  say  une- 
qualed,  or  I  shall  be  guilty  of  running  into  superlatives 
myself,  but  it  is  in  its  way  equal  to  anything  I  have  seen. 
Perhaps  it  is  more  like  Cork  harbor,  as  seen  from  certain 
heights  over  Passage,  than  anything  else  I  can  remember ; 
but  Portland  harbor,  though  equally  landlocked,  is  larger ; 
and  then  from  Portland  harbor  there  is,  as  it  were,  a  river 
outlet  running  through  delicious  islands,  most  unalluring  to 
the  navigator,  but  delicious  to  the  eyes  of  an  uncommercial 
traveler.  There  are  in  all  four  outlets  to  the  sea,  one  of 
which  appears  to  have  been  made  expressly  for  the  Great 
Eastern.  Then  there  is  the  hill  looking  inward.  If  it  has 
a  name,  I  forget  it.  The  view  from  this  hill  is  also  over 
the  water  on  each  side,  and,  though  not  so  extensive,  is 
perhaps  as  pleasing  as  the  other. 

The  ways  of  the  people  seemed  to  be  quiet,  smooth,  or- 
derly, and  republican.  There  is  nothing  to  drink  in  Port- 
land, of  course ;  for,  thanks  to  Mr.  Neal  Dow,  the  Father 
Matthew  of  the  State  of  Maine,  the  Maine  liquor  law  is 
still  in  force  in  that  State.  There  is  nothing  to  drink,  I 
should  say,  in  such  orderly  houses  as  that  I  selected.  "  Peo- 
ple do  drink  some  in  the  town,  they  say,"  said  my  hostess 
to  me,  "and  liquor  is  to  be  got.  But  I  never  venture  to 
sell  any.  An  ill-natured  person  might  turn  on  nie ;  and 
where  should  I  be  then  ?"  I  did  not  press  her,  and  she  was 
good  enough  to  put  a  bottle  of  porter  at  my  right  hand  at 
dinner,  for  which  I  observed  she  made  no  charge.  "But 
they  advertise  beer  in  the  shop  windows,"  I  said  to  a  man 
who  was  driving  me — "  Scotch  ale  and  bitter  beer.  A  man 
can  get  drunk  on  them."  "Waal,  yes.  If  he  goes  to  work 
hard,  and  drinks  a  bucketful,"  said  the  driver,  "perhaps  he 
may."  From  which  and  other  things  I  gathered  that  the 
men  of  Maine  drank  pottle  deep  before  Mr.  Neal  Dow 
brought  his  exertions  to  a  successful  termination. 

4* 


42 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


The  Maine  liquor  law  still  stands  in  Maine,  and  is  the 
law  of  the  land  throughout  New  England  ;  but  it  is  not 
actually  put  in  force  in  the  other  States.  By  this  law  no 
man  may  retail  wine,  spirits,  or,  in  truth,  beer,  except  with 
a  special  license,  which  is  given  only  to  those  who  are  pre- 
sumed to  sell  them  as  medicines.  A  man  may  have  what 
he  likes  in  his  own  cellar  for  his  own  use — such,  at  least,  is 
the  actual  working  of  the  law — but  may  not  obtain  it  at 
hotels  and  public  houses.  This  law,  like  all  sumptuary 
laws,  must  fail.  And  it  is  fast  failing  even  in  Maine.  But 
it  did  appear  to  me,  from  such  information  as  I  could  col- 
lect, that  the  passing  of  it  had  done  much  to  hinder  and 
repress  a  habit  of  hard  drinking  which  was  becoming  terri- 
bly common,  not  only  in  the  towns  of  Maine,  but  among  the 
farmers  and  hired  laborers  in  the  country. 

But,  if  the  men  and  women  of  Portland  may  not  drink, 
they  may  eat;  and  it  is  a  place,  I  should  say,  in  which  good 
living  on  that  side  of  the  question  is  very  rife.  It  has  an 
air  of  supreme  plenty,  as  though  the  agonies  of  an  empty 
stomach  were  never  known  there.  The  faces  of  the  people 
tell  of  three  regular  meals  of  meat  a  day,  and  of  digestive 
powers  in  proportion.  0  happy  Portlanders,  if  they  only 
knew  their  own  good  fortune  !  They  get  up  early,  and  go 
to  bed  early.  The  women  are  comely  and  sturdy,  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  without  any  fal-lal  of  chivalry,  and 
the  men  are  sedate,  obliging,  and  industrious.  I  saw  the 
young  girls  in  the  streets  coming  home  from  their  tea  par- 
ties at  nine  o'clock,  many  of  them  alone,  and  all  with  some 
basket  in  their  hands,  which  betokened  an  evening  not  passed 
absolutely  in  idleness.  No  fear  there  of  unruly  questions 
on  the  way,  or  of  insolence  from  the  ill-conducted  of  the 
other  sex.  All  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  orderly,  sleek,  and 
unobtrusive.  Probably,  of  all  modes  of  life  that  are  allotted 
to  man  by  his  Creator,  life  such  as  this  is  the  most  happy. 
One  hint,  however,  for  improvement,  I  must  give  even  to 
Portland  :  It  would  be  well  if  they  could  make  their  streets 
of  some  material  harder  than  sand. 

I  must  not  leave  the  town  without  desiring  those  who 
may  visit  it  to  mount  the  observatory.  They  will  from 
thence  get  the  best  view  of  the  harbor  and  of  the  surround- 
ing land ;  and,  if  they  chance  to  do  so  under  the  reign  of 
the  present  keeper  of  the  signals,  they  will  find  a  man  there 
able  and  willing  to  tell  them  everything  needful  about  the 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS. 


43 


State  of  Maine  in  general  and  the  harbor  in  particular.  He 
will  come  out  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  and,  like  a  true  American, 
will  not  at  first  be  very  smooth  in  his  courtesy  ;  but  he  will 
wax  brighter  in  conversation,  and,  if  not  stroked  the  wrong 
way,  will  turn  out  to  be  an  uncommonly  pleasant  fellow. 
Such  I  believe  to  be  the  case  with  most  of  them. 

From  Portland  we  made  our  way  up  to  the  White  Mount- 
ains, which  lay  on  our  route  to  Canada.  Now,  I  would 
ask  any  of  my  readers  who  are  candid  enough  to  expose 
their  own  ignorance  whether  they  ever  heard,  or  at  any  rate 
whether  they  know  anything,  of  the  White  Mountains  ?  As 
regards  myself,  I  confess  that  the  name  had  reached  my 
ears ;  that  I  had  an  indefinite  idea  that  they  formed  an  in- 
termediate stage  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
Alleghanies ;  and  that  they  were  inhabited  either  by  Mor- 
mons, Indians,  or  simply  by  black  bears.  That  there  was 
a  district  in  New  England  containing  mountain  scenery  su- 
perior to  much  that  is  yearly  crowded  by  tourists  in  Europe, 
that  this  is  to  be  reached  with  ease  by  railways  and  stage- 
coaches, and  that  it  is  dotted  with  huge  hotels  almost  as 
thickly  as  they  lie  in  Switzerland,  I  had  no  idea.  Much  of 
this  scenery,  I  say,  is  superior  to  the  famed  and  classic  lands 
of  Europe.  I  know  nothing,  for  instance,  on  the  Rhine 
equal  to  the  view  from  Mount  Willard  down  the  mountain 
pass  called  the  Notch. 

Let  the  visitor  of  these  regions  be  as  late  in  the  year  as 
he  can,  taking  care  that  he  is  not  so  late  as  to  find  the  ho- 
tels closed.  October,  no  doubt,  is  the  most  beautiful  month 
among  these  mountains  ;  but,  according  to  the  present  ar- 
rangement of  matters  here,  the  hotels  are  shut  up  by  the 
end  of  September.  With  us,  August,  September,  and  Octo- 
ber are  the  holiday  months  ;  whereas  our  rebel  children 
across  the  Atlantic  love  to  disport  themselves  in  July  and 
August.  The  great  beauty  of  the  autumn,  or  fall,  is  in  the 
brilliant  hues  which  are  then  taken  by  the  foliage.  The 
autumnal  tints  are  fine  with  us.  They  are  lovely  and  bright 
wherever  foliage  and  vegetation  form  a  part  of  the  beauty 
of  scenery.  But  in  no  other  land  do  they  approach  the 
brilliancy  of  the  fall  in  America.  The  bright  rose  color, 
the  rich  bronze  which  is  almost  purple  in  its  richness,  and 
the  glorious  golden  yellows  must  be  seen  to  be  understood. 
By  me,  at  any  rate,  they  cannot  be  described.  They  begin 
to  show  themselves  in  September ;  and  perhaps  I  might 


44 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


name  tlie  latter  lialf  of  tliat  month  as  the  best  time  for  vis- 
iting the  White  Mountains. 

I  am  not  going  to  write  a  guide  book,  feeling  sure  that 
Mr.  Murray  will  do  Nev/  England  and  Canada,  including 
Niagara,  and  the  Hudson  River,  with  a  peep  into  Boston 
and  New  York,  before  many  more  seasons  have  passed  by. 
But  I  cannot  forbear  to  tell  my  countrymen  that  any  en- 
terprising individual,  with  a  hundred  pounds  to  spend  on 
his  holiday — a  hundred  and  twenty  would  make  him  more 
comfortable  in  regard  to  wine,  washing,  and  other  luxuries 
— and  an  absence  of  two  months  from  his  labors,  may  see 
as  much  and  do  as  much  here  for  the  money  as  he  can  see 
or  do  elsewhere.  In  some  respects  he  may  do  more  ;  for 
he  will  learn  more  of  American  nature  in  such  a  journey 
than  he  can  ever  learn  of  the  nature  of  Frenchmen  or  Amer- 
icans by  such  an  excursion  among  them.  Some  three  weeks 
of  the  time,  or  perhaps  a  day  or  two  over,  he  must  be  at 
sea,  and  that  portion  of  his  trip  will  cost  him  fifty  pounds, 
presuming  that  he  chooses  to  go  in  the  most  comfortable 
and  costly  way ;  but  his  time  on  board  ship  will  not  be  lost. 
He  will  learn  to  know  much  of  Americans  there,  and  will 
perhaps  form  acquaintances  of  which  he  will  not  altogether 
lose  sight  for  many  a  year.  He  will  land  at  Boston,  and, 
staying  a  day  or  two  there,  will  visit  Cambridge,  Lowell, 
and  Bunker  Hill,  and,  if  he  be  that  way  given,  will  remem- 
ber that  here  live,  and  occasionally  are  to  be  seen  alive,  men 
such  as  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and  a  host  of 
others,  whose  names  and  fames  have  made  Boston  the  throne 
of  Western  literature.  He  will  then,  if  he  take  my  advice 
and  follow  my  track,  go  by  Portland  up  into  the  White 
Mountains.  At  Gorham,  a  station  on  the  Grand  Trunk 
Line,  he  will  find  a  hotel  as  good  as  any  of  its  kind,  and  from 
thence  he  will  take  a  light  wagon,  so  called  in  these  coun- 
tries. And  here  let  me  presume  that  the  traveler  is  not 
alone :  he  has  his  wife  or  friend,  or  perhaps  a  pair  of  sisters, 
and  in  his  wagon  he  will  go  up  through  primeval  forests 
to  the  Glen  House.  When  there,  he  will  ascend  Mount 
Washington  on  a  pony.  Tliat  is  de  rigueur,  and  I  do  not 
therefore  dare  to  recommend  him  to  omit  the  ascent.  I  did 
not  gain  much  myself  by  my  labor.  He  will  not  stay  at  the 
Glen  House,  but  will  go  on  to — Jackson's  I  think  they  call 
the  next  hotel,  at  which  he  will  sleep.  From  thence  he  will 
take  his  wagon  on  through  the  Notch  to  the  Crawford 


THE  WHITE  MOUNTAINS. 


45 


House,  sleeping  there  again  ;  and  when  liere,  let  him,  of  all 
things,  remember  to  go  up  Mount  Willard.  It  is  but  a 
walk  of  two  hours  up  and  down,  if  so  much.  When  reach- 
ing the  top,  he  will  be  startled  to  find  that  he  looks  down 
into  the  ravine  without  an  inch  of  foreground.  He  will 
come  out  suddenly  on  a  ledge  of  rock,  from  whence,  as  it 
seems,  he  might  leap  down  at  once  into  the  valley  below. 
Then,  going  on  from  the  Crawford  House,  he  will  be  driven 
through  the  woods  of  Cherry  Mount,  passing,  I  fear  without 
toll  of  custom,  the  house  of  my  excellent  friend  Mr.  Plais- 
tead,  who  keeps  a  hotel  at  Jefferson.  "  Sir,"  said  Mr. 
Plaistead,  I  have  everything  here  that  a  man  ought  to 
want :  air,  sir,  that  aint  to  be  got  better  nowhere  ;  trout, 
chickens,  beef,  mutton,  milk — and  all  for  a  dollar  a  day  I 
A-top  of  that  hill,  sjr,  there's  a  view  that  aint  to  be  beaten 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  or  I  believe  the  other.  And  an 
echo,  sir ! — we've  an  echo  that  comes  back  to  us  six  times, 
sir ;  floating  on  the  light  wind,  and  wafted  about  from  rock 
to  rock,  till  you  would  think  the  angels  were  talking  to  you. 
If  I  could  raise  that  echo,  sir,  every  day  at  command,  I'd 
give  a  thousand  dollars  for  it.  It  would  be  worth  all  the 
money  to  a  house  like  this."  And  he  waved  his  hand  about 
from  hill  to  hill,  pointing  out  in  graceful  curves  the  lines 
which  the  sounds  would  take.  Had  destiny  not  called  on 
Mr.  Plaistead  to  keep  an  American  hotel,  he  might  have 
been  a  poet. 

My  traveler,  however,  unless  time  were  plenty  with  him, 
would  pass  Mr.  Plaistead,  merely  lighting  a  friendly  cigar, 
or  perhaps  breaking  the  Maine  liquor  law  if  the  weather 
be  warm,  and  would  return  to  Gorham  on  the  railway.  All 
this  mountain  district  is  in  New  Hampshire ;  and,  presum- 
ing him  to  be  capable  of  going  about  the  world  with  his 
mouth,  ears,  and  eyes  open,  he  would  learn  much  of  the 
way  in  which  men  are  settling  themselves  in  this  still 
sparsely-populated  country.  Here  young  farmers  go  into 
the  woods  as  they  are  doing  far  down  West  in  the  Territo- 
ries, and  buying  some  hundred  acres  at  perhaps  six  shillings 
an  acre,  fell  and  burn  the  trees,  and  build  their  huts,  and 
take  the  first  steps,  as  far  as  man's  work  is  concerned,  to- 
ward accomplishing  the  will  of  the  Creator  in  those  regions. 
For  such  pioneers  of  civilization  there  is  still  ample  room 
even  in  the  long-settled  States  of  New  Hampshire  and 
Term  out. 


46 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


But  to  return  to  my  traveler,  whom,  having  brought  so 
far,  I  must  send  on.  Let  him  go  on  from  Gorham  to  Que- 
bec and  the  heights  of  Abraham,  stopping  at  Sherbrooke 
that  he  might  visit  from  thence  the  Lal\:e  of  Memplira  Ma- 
gog. As  to  the  manner  of  traveling  over  this  ground  I 
shall  say  a  little  in  the  next  chapter,  when  I  come  to  the 
progress  of  myself  and  my  wife.  From  Quebec  he  will  go 
up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Montreal.  He  will  visit  Ottawa, 
the  new  capital,  and  Toronto.  He  will  cross  the  lake  to 
Niagara,  resting  probably  at  the  Clifton  House  on  the  Can- 
ada side.  He  will  then  pass  on  to  Albany,  taking  the  Tren- 
ton Falls  on  his  way.  From  Albany  he  will  go  down  the 
Hudson  to  West  Point.  He  cannot  stop  at  the  Catskill 
Mountains,  for  the  hotel  will  be  closed.  And  then  he  will 
take  the  river  boat,  and  in  a  few  hours  will  find  himself  at 
New  York.  If  he  desires  to  go  into  American  city  society, 
he  will  find  New  York  agreeable  ;  but  in  that  case  he  must 
exceed  his  two  months.  If  he  do  not  so  desire,  a  short  so- 
journ at  New  York  will  show  him  all  that  there  is  to  be 
seen  and  all  that  there  is  not  to  be  seen  in  that  great  city. 
That  the  Cunard  line  of  steamers  will  bring  him  safely  back 
to  Liverpool  in  about  eleven  days,  I  need  not  tell  to  any 
Englishman,  or,  as  I  believe,  to  any  American.  So  much, 
in  the  spirit  of  a  guide,  I  vouchsafe  to  all  who  are  willing 
to  take  my  counsel  — thereby  anticipating  Murray,  and 
leaving  these  few  pages  as  a  legacy  to  him  or  to  his 
collaborateurs. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  like  the  hotels  in  those  parts,  or,  in- 
deed, the  mode  of  life  at  American  hotels  in  general.  In 
order  that  I  may  not  unjustly  defame  them,  I  will  commence 
these  observations  by  declaring  that  they  are  cheap  to  those 
who  choose  to  practice  the  economy  which  they  encourage, 
that  the  viands  are  profuse  in  quantity  and  wholesome  in 
quality,  that  the  attendance  is  quick  and  unsparing,  and  that 
travelers  are  never  annoyed  by  that  grasping,  greedy  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  francs  and  shillings  which  disgrace,  in 
Europe,  many  English  and  many  continental  inns.  All  this 
is,  as  must  be  admitted,  great  praise  ;  and  yet  I  do  not  like 
the  American  hotels. 

One  is  in  a  free  country,  and  has  come  from  a  country  in 
which  one  has  been  brought  up  to  hug  one's  chains — so  at 
least  the  English  traveler  is  constantly  assured — and  yet  in 
an  American  inn  one  can  never  do  as  one  likes.    A  terrific 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


4T 


gong  sounds  early  in  the  morning,  breaking  one's  sweet 
slumbers ;  and  then  a  second  gong,  sounding  some  thirty- 
minutes  later,  makes  you  understand  that  you  must  proceed 
to  breakfast  whether  you  be  dressed  or  no.  You  certainly 
can  go  on  with  your  toilet,  and  obtain  your  meal  after  half 
an  hour's  delay.  Nobody  actually  scolds  you  for  so  doing, 
but  the  breakfast  is,  as  they  say  in  this  country,  "through," 
You  sit  down  alone,  and  the  attendant  stands  immediately 
over  you.  Probably  there  are  two  so  standing.  They  fill 
your  cup  the  instant  it  is  empty.  They  tender  you  fresh 
food  before  that  which  has  disappeared  from  your  plate  has 
been  swallowed.  They  begrudge  you  no  amount  that  you 
can  eat  or  drink  ;  but  they  begrudge  you  a  single  moment 
that  you  sit  there  neither  eating  nor  drinking.  This  is  your 
fate  if  you're  too  late ;  and  therefore,  as  a  rule,  you  are  not 
late.  In  that  case,  you  form  one  of  a  long  row  of  eaters 
v/ho  proceed  through  their  work  with  a  solid  energy  that  is 
past  all  praise.  It  is  wrong  to  say  that  Americans  will  not 
talk  at  their  meals.  I  never  met  but  few  who  would  not 
talk  to  me,  at  any  rate  till  I  got  to  the  far  West ;  but  I 
have  rarely  found  that  they  would  address  me  first.  Then 
the  dinner  comes  early — at  least  it  always  does  so  in  New 
England — and  the  ceremony  is  much  of  the  same  kind.  You 
came  there  to  eat,  and  the  food  is  pressed  upon  you  ad 
nauseam.  But,  as  far  as  one  can  see,  there  is  no  drinking. 
In  these  days,  I  am  quite  aware  that  drinking  has  become 


of  wine  as  a  thing  tabooed,  wondering  how  our  fathers  lived 
and  swilled.  I  believe  that,  as  a  fact,  we  drink  as  much  as 
they  did  ;  but,  nevertheless,  that  is  our  theory.  I  confess, 
however,  that  I  like  wine.  It  is  very  wicked,  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  my  dinner  goes  down  better  with  a  glass  of 
sherry  than  without  it.  As  a  rule,  I  always  did  get  it  at 
hotels  in  America.  But  I  had  no  comfort  with  it.  Sherry 
they  do  not  understand  at  all.  Of  course  I  am  only  speak- 
ing of  hotels.  Their  claret  they  get  exclusively  from  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and,  looking  at  the  quality,  have  a  right  to 
quarrel  even  with  Mr.  Gladstone's  price.  But  it  is  not  the 
quality  of  the  wine  that  I  hereby  intend  to  subject  to  igno- 
miny so  much  as  the  want  of  any  opportunity  for  drinking 
it.  After  dinner,  if  all  that  I  hear  be  true,  the  gentlemen 
occasionally  drop  into  the  hotel  bar  and  "liquor  up."  Or 
rather  this  is  not  done  specially  after  dinner,  but,  without 


We  are  apt,  at  home,  to  speak 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


prejudice  to  tlie  hour,  at  any  time  that  may  be  found  desira- 
ble. I  also  have  "liquored  up,"  but  I  cannot  eay  that  1  enjoy 
the  process.  I  do  not  intend  hereby  to  accuse  Americans  of 
drinking  much ;  but  I  maintain  that  what  they  do  drink, 
they  drink  in  the  most  uncomfortable  manner  that  the 
imagination  can  devise. 

The  greatest  luxury  at  an  English  inn  is  one's  tea,  one's 
fire,  and  one's  book.  Such  an  arrangement  is  not  practica- 
ble at  an  American  hotel.  Tea,  like  breakfast,  is  a  great 
meal,  at  which  meat  should  be  eaten,  generally  with  the  ad- 
dition of  much  jelly,  jam,  and  sweet  preserve ;  but  no  person 
delays  over  his  teacup.  I  love  to  have  my  teacup  emptied 
and  filled  with  gradual  pauses,  so  that  time  for  oblivion 
may  accrue,  and  no  exact  record  be  taken.  No  such  meal 
is  known  at  American  hotels.  It  is  possible  to  hire  a  sep- 
arate room,  and  have  one's  meals  served  in  it ;  but  in  doing 
so  a  man  runs  counter  to  all  the  institutions  of  the  country, 
and  a  woman  does  so  equally.  A  stranger  does  not  wish  to 
be  viewed  askance  by  all  around  him  ;  and  the  rule  which 
holds  that  men  at  Rome  should  do  as  Komans  do,  if  true 
anywhere,  is  true  in  America.  Therefore  I  say  that  in  an 
American  inn  one  can  never  do  as  one  pleases. 

In  what  I  have  here  said  I  do  not  intend  to  speak  of  hotels 
in  the  largest  cities,  such  as  Boston  or  New  York.  At  them 
meals  are  served  in  the  public  room  separately,  and  pretty 
nearly  at  any  or  at  all  hours  of  the  day  ;  but  at  them  also 
the  attendant  stands  over  the  unfortunate  eater  and  drives 
him.  The  guest  feels  that  he  is  controlled  by  laws  adapted 
to  the  usages  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  He  is  not  the 
master  on  the  occasion,  but  the  slave — a  slave  well  treated, 
and  fattened  up  to  the  full  endurance  of  humanity,  but  yet 
a  slave. 

From  Gorham  we  went  on  to  Island  Pond,  a  station  on 
the  same  Canada  Trunk  Railway,  on  a  Saturday  evening, 
and  were  forced  by  the  circumstances  of  the  line  to  pass  a 
melancholy  Sunday  at  the  place.  The  cars  do  not  run  on 
Sundays,  and  run  but  once  a  day  on  other  days  over  the 
whole  line,  so  that,  in  fact,  the  impediment  to  traveling 
spreads  over  two  days.  Island  Pond  is  a  lake  with  an  island 
in  it ;  and  the  place  which  has  taken  the  name  is  a  small 
village,  about  ten  years  old,  standing  in  the  midst  of  uncut 
forests,  and  has  been  created  by  the  railway.  In  ten  years 
«    more  there  will  no  doubt  be  a  spreading  town  at  Island 


ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA. 


49 


Pond  ;  the  forests  will  recede  ;  and  men,  rushing  out  from 
the  crowded  cities,  will  find  here  food,  and  space,  and  wealth. 
For  myself,  I  never  remain  long  in  such  a  spot  without  feel- 
ing thankful  that  it  has  not  been  my  mission  to  be  a  pioneer 
of  civilization. 

The  farther  that  I  got  away  from  Boston  the  less  strong 
did  I  find  the  feeling  of  anger  against  England.  There,  as 
I  have  said  before,  there  was  a  bitter  animosity  against  the 
mother  country  in  that  she  had  shown  no  open  sympathy 
with  the  North.  In  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  I  did  not 
find  this  to  be  the  case  to  any  violent  degree.  Men  spoke 
of  the  war  as  openly  as  they  did  at  Boston,  and,  in  speak- 
ing to  me,  generally  connected  England  with  the  subject. 
But  they  did  so  simply  to  ask  questions  as  to  England's 
policy.  What  will  she  do  for  cotton  when  her  operatives 
are  really  pressed  ?  Will  she  break  the  blockade  ?  Will 
she  insist  on  li  right  to  trade  with  Charleston  and  New  Or- 
leans ?  I  always  answered  that  she  would  insist  on  no  such 
right,  if  that  right  were  denied  to  others  and  the  denial 
enforced,  England,  I  took  upon  myself  to  say,  w^ould  not 
break  a  veritable  blockade,  let  her  be  driven  to  what  shifts 
she  might  in  providing  for  her  operatives.  "  Ah  !  that's 
what  w^e  fear,"  a  very  stanch  patriot  said  to  me,  if  words 
may  be  taken  as  a  proof  of  stanchness.  "  If  England  allies 
herself  with  the  Southerners,  all  our  trouble  is  for  nothing." 
It  was  impossible  not  to  feel  that  all  that  was  said  was  com- 
plimentary to  England.  It  is  her  sympathy  that  the  North- 
ern men  desire,  to  her  co-operation  that  they  would  will- 
ingly trust,  on  her  honesty  that  they  would  choose  to  depend. 
It  is  the  same  feeling  whether  it  shows  itself  in  anger  or  iii 
curiosity.  An  American,  whether  he  be  embarked  in  poli- 
tics, in  literature,  or  in  commerce,  desires  English  admira- 
tion, English  appreciation  of  his  energy,  and  English  en- 
couragement. The  anger  of  Boston  is  but  a  sign  of  its 
affectionate  friendliness.  What  feeling  is  so  hot  as  that  of 
a  friend  when  his  dearest  friend  refuses  to  share  his  quarrel 
or  to  sympathize  in  his  wrongs  !  To  my  thinking,  the  men 
of  Boston  are  wrong  and  unreasonable  in  their  anger ;  but 
were  I  a  man  of  Boston,  I  should  be  as  wrong  and  as  un- 
reasonable as  any  of  them.  All  that,  however,  will  come 
right.  I  will  not  believe  it  possible  that  there  should  in 
very  truth  be  a  quarrel  between  England  and  the  Northern 
States. 

5 


50 


KORTH  AMERICA. 


In  the  guidance  of  those  who  are  not  quite  au  fait  at 
the  details  of  American  government,  I  will  here  in  a  few 
words  describe  the  outlines  of  State  government  as  it  is 
arranged  in  New  Hampshire.  The  States,  in  this  respect, 
are  not  all  alike,  the  modes  of  election  of  their  officers,  and 
periods  of  service,  being  different.  Even  the  franchise  is 
different  in  different  States.  Universal  suffrage  is  not  the 
rule  throughout  the  United  States,  though  it  is,  I  believe, 
very  generally  thought  in  England  that  such  is  the  fact.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  the  laws  in  the  different  States  may  be 
as  various  as  the  different  legislatures  may  choose  to  make 
them. 

In  New  Hampshire  universal  suffrage  does  prevail,  which 
means  that  any  man  may  vote  who  lives  in  the  State,  sup- 
ports himself,  and  assists  to  support  the  poor  by  means  of 
poor  rates.  A  governor  of  the  State  is  elected  for  one  year 
only  ;  but  it  is  customary,  or  at  any  rate  not -uncustomary, 
to  re-elect  him  for  a  second  year.  His  salary  is  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  or  two  hundred  pounds.  It  must  be  pre- 
sumed, therefore,  that  glory,  and  not  money,  is  his  object. 
To  him  is  appended  a  Council,  by  whose  opinions  he  must 
in  a  great  degree  be  guided.  His  functions  are  to  the  State 
what  those  of  the  President  are  to  the  country ;  and,  for 
the  short  period  of  his  reign,  he  is  as  it  were  a  Prime  Min- 
ister of  the  State,  with  certain  very  limited  regal  attributes. 
He,  however,  by  no  means  enjoys  the  regal  attribute  of  doing 
no  wrong.  In  every  State  there  is  an  Assembly,  consisting 
of  two  houses  of  elected  representatives  —  the  Senate,  or 
upper  house,  and  the  House  of  Representatives  so  called. 
In  New  Hampshire,  this  Assembly  or  Parliament  is  styled 
The  General  Court  of  New  Hampshire.  It  sits  annually, 
whereas  the  legislature  in  many  States  sits  only  every  other 
year.  Both  houses  are  re-elected  every  year.  This  As- 
sembly passes  laws  with  all  the  power  vested  in  our  Parlia- 
ment, but  such  laws  apply  of  course  only  to  the  State  in 
question.  The  Governor  of  the  State  has  a  veto  on  all 
bills  passed  by  the  two  houses.  But,  after  receipt  of  his 
veto,  any  bill  so  stopped  by  the  Governor  can  be  passed  by 
a  majority  of  two-thirds  in  each  house.  The  General  Court 
usually  sits  for  about  ten  weeks.  There  are  in  the  State 
eight  judges — three  supreme,  who  sit  at  Concord,  the  capi- 
tal, as  a  court  of  appeal  both  in  civil  and  criminal  matters, 
and  then  five  lesser  judges,  who  go  circuit  through  the 


CANADA. 


51 


State.  The  salaries  of  these  lesser  judges  do  not  exceed 
from  £250  to  £300  a  year;  but  they  are,  I  believe,  allowed 
to  practice  as  lawyers  in  any  counties  except  those  in  which 
they  sit  as  judges — being  guided,  in  this  respect,  by  the 
same  law  as  that  which  regulates  the  work  of  assistant  bar- 
risters in  Ireland.  The  assistant  barristers  in  Ireland  are 
attached  to  the  counties  as  judges  at  Quarter  Sessions,  but 
they  practice,  or  may  practice,  as  advocates  in  all  counties 
except  that  to  which  they  are  so  attached.  The  judges  in 
New  Hampshire  are  appointed  by  the  Governor,  with  the 
assistance  of  his  Council.  No  judge  in  New  Hampshire 
can  hold  his  seat  after  he  has  reached  seventy  years  of  age. 

So  much  at  the  present  moment  with  reference  to  the 
government  of  New  Hampshire. 


CHAPTER  lY. 

LOWER  CANADA. 

The  Grand  Trunk  Railway  runs  directly  from  Portland 
to  Montreal,  which  latter  town  is,  in  fact,  the  capital  of 
Canada,  though  it  never  has  been  so  exclusively,  and,  as  it 
seems,  never  is  to  be  so  as  regards  authority,  government, 
and  official  name.  In  such  matters,  authority  and  govern- 
ment often  say  one  thing  while  commerce  says  another;  but 
commerce  always  has  the  best  of  it  and  wins  the  game, 
whatever  government  may  decree.  Albany,  in  this  way,  is 
the  capital  of  the  State  of  New  York,  as  authorized  by  the 
State  government ;  but  New  York  has  made  herself  the 
capital  of  America,  and  will  remain  so.  So  also  Montreal 
has  made  herself  the  capital  of  Canada.  The  Grand  Trunk 
Railway  runs  from  Portland  to  Montreal  ;  but  there  is  a 
branch  from  Richmond,  a  township  within  the  limits  of 
Canada,  to  Quebec ;  so  that  travelers  to  Quebec,  as  we 
were,  are  not  obliged  to  reach  that  place  via  Montreal. 

Quebec  is  the  present  seat  of  Canadian  government,  its 
turn  for  that  honor  having  come  round  some  two  years  ago; 
but  it  is  about  to  be  deserted  in  favor  of  Ottawa,  a  town 
which  is,  in  fact,  still  to  be  built  on  the  river  of  that  name. 
The  public  edifices  are,  however,  in  a  state  of  forwardness; 


52 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


and  if  all  goes  well,  the  Governor,  the  two  Councils,  and  the 
House  of  lleprcsentatives  will  be  there  before  two  years 
are  over,  whether  there  be  any  town  to  receive  them  or  no. 
Who  can  think  of  Ottawa  without  bidding  his  brothers  to 
row,  and  reminding  them  that  the  stream  runs  fast,  that  the 
rapids  are  near  and  the  daylight  past  ?  I  aslvcd,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  whether  Quebec  was  much  disgusted  at  the 
proposed  change,  and  I  was  told  that  the  feeling  was  not 
now  very  strong.  Had  it  been  determined  to  make  Mon- 
treal the  permanent  seat  of  government,  Quebec  and  Toronto 
would  both  have  been  up  in  arms. 

I  must  confess  that,  in  going  from  the  States  into  Can- 
ada, an  Englishman  is  struck  by  the  feeling  that  he  is  going 
from  a  richer  country  into  one  that  is  poorer,  and  from  a 
greater  country  into  one  that  is  less.  An  Englishman  going 
from  a  foreign  land  into  a  land  which  is  in  one  sense  his 
own,  of  course  finds  much  in  the  change  to  gratify  him. 
He  is  able  to  speak  as  the  master,  instead  of  speaking  as 
the  visitor.  His  tongue  becomes  more  free,  and  he  is  able 
to  fall  back  to  his  national  habits  and  national  expressions. 
He  no  longer  feels  that  he  is  admitted  on  sufferance,  or  that 
he  must  be  careful  to  respect  laws  which  he  does  not  quite 
understand.  This  feeling  was  naturally  strong  in  an  Eng- 
lishman in  passing  from  the  States  into  Canada  at  the  time 
of  my  visit.  English  policy,  at  that  moment,  was  violently 
abused  by  Americans,  and  was  upheld  as  violently  in  Can- 
ada. But  nevertheless,  with  all  this,  I  could  not  enter  Can- 
ada without  seeing,  and  hearing,  and  feeling  that  there  was 
less  of  enterprise  around  me  there  than  in  the  States,  less  of 
general  movement,  and  less  of  commercial  success.  To  say 
why  this  is  so  would  require  a  long  and  very  difficult  dis- 
cussion, and  one  which  I  am  not  prepared  to  hold.  It  may 
be  that  a  dependent  country,  let  the  feeling  of  dependence 
be  ever  so  much  modified  by  powers  of  self-governance, 
cannot  hold  its  own  against  countries  which  are  in  all  re- 
spects their  own  masters.  Few,  I  believe,  would  now  main- 
tain that  the  Northern  States  of  America  would  have  risen 
in  commerce  as  they  have  risen,  had  they  still  remained  at- 
tached to  England  as  colonies.  If  this  be  so,  that  privilege 
of  self-rule  which  they  have  acquired  has  been  the  cause  of 
their  success.  It  does  not  follow  as  a  consequence  that  the 
Canadas,  fighting  their  battle  alone  in  the  world,  could  do 
as  the  States  have  done.    Climate,  or  size,  or  geographical 


CANADA. 


53 


position  might  stand  in  their  way.  But  I  fear  that  it  does 
follow,  if  not  as  a  logical  conclusion,  at  least  as  a  natural 
result,  that  they  never  will  do  so  well  unless  some  day  they 
shall  so  fight  their  battle.  It  may  be  argued  that  Canada 
has  in  fact  the  power  of  self-governance  ;  that  she  rules 
herself  and  makes  her  own  laws  as  England  does  ;  that  the 
Sovereign  of  England  has  but  a  veto  on  those  laws,  and 
stands  in  regard  to  Canada  exactly  as  she  does  in  regard  to 
England.  This  is  so,  I  believe,  by  the  letter  of  the  Consti- 
tution, but  is  not  so  in  reality,  and  cannot  in  truth  be  so  in 
any  colony  even  of  Great  Britain.  In  England  the  political 
power  of  the  Crown  is  nothing.  The  Crown  has  no  such 
power,  and  now-a-days  makes  no  attempt  at  having  any. 
But  the  political  power  of  the  Crown  as  it  is  felt  in  Canada 
is  everything.  The  Crown  has  no  such  power  in  England, 
because  it  must  change  its  ministers  whenever  called  upon 
to  do  so  by  the  House  of  Commons.  But  the  Colonial 
Minister  in  Downing  Street  is  the  Crown's  Prime  Minister 
as  regards  the  colonies,  and  he  is  changed  not  as  any  colo- 
nial House  of  Assembly  may  wish,  but  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  the  British  Commons.  Both  the  houses  in  Can- 
ada— that,  namely,  of  the  Representatives,  or  Lower  House, 
and  of  the  Legislative  Council,  or  Upper  House — are  now 
elective,  and  are  filled  without  direct  influence  from  the 
Crown.  The  power  of  self-government  is  as  thoroughly 
developed  as  perhaps  may  be  possible  in  a  colony.  But, 
after  all,  it  is  a  dependent  form  of  government,  and  as  such 
may  perhaps  not  conduce  to  so  thorough  a  development  of 
the  resources  of  the  country  as  might  be  achieved  under  a 
ruling  power  of  its  own,  to  which  the  welfare  of  Canada 
itself  would  be  the  chiet  if  not  the  only  object. 

I  beg  that  it  may  not  be  considered  from  this  that  I 
would  propose  to  Canada  to  set  up  for  itself  at  once  and 
declare  itself  independent.  In  the  first  place  I  do  not  wish 
to  throw  over  Canada;  and  in  the  next  place  I  do  not  wish 
to  throw  over  England.  If  such  a  separation  shall  ever 
take  place,  I  trust  that  it  may  be  caused,  not  by  Canadian 
violence,  but  by  British  generosity.  Such  a  separation, 
however,  never  can  be  good  till  Canada  herself  shall  wish 
it.  That  she  does  not  wish  it  yet,  is  certain.  If  Canada 
ever  should  wish  it,  and  should  ever  press  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  such  a  wish,  she  must  do  so  in  connection 
with  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick.    If  at  any  future 

5* 


54 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


time  there  be  formed  such  a  separate  political  power,  it 
must  include  the  whole  of  British  North  America. 

In  the  mean  time,  I  return  to  my  assertion,  that  in  enter- 
ing Canada  from  the  States  one  clearly  comes  from  a  richer 
to  a  poorer  country.  When  I  have  said  so,  I  have  heard 
no  Canadian  absolutely  deny  it;  though  in  refraining  from 
denying  it,  they  have  usually  expressed  a  general  convic- 
tion, that  in  settling  himself  for  life  it  is  better  for  a  man 
to  set  up  his  staff"  in  Canada  than  in  the  States.  "I  do 
not  know  that  we  are  richer,"  a  Canadian  says,  "but  on 
the  whole  we  are  doing  better  and  are  happier."  Now,  I 
regard  the  golden  rules  against  the  love  of  gold,  the  ''aurum 
irrepertum  et  sic  melius  situm,^^  and  the  rest  of  it,  as  very 
excellent  when  applied  to  individuals.  Such  teaching  has 
not  much  eff'ect,  perhaps,  in  inducing  men  to  abstain  from 
wealth ;  but  such  effect  as  it  may  have  will  be  good.  Men 
and  women  do,  I  suppose,  learn  to  be  happier  when  they 
learn  to  disregard  riches.  But  such  a  doctrine  is  absolutely 
false  as  regards  a  nation.  National  wealth  produces  edu- 
cation and  progress,  and  through  them  produces  plenty  of 
food,  good  morals,  and  all  else  that  is  good.  It  produces 
luxury  also,  and  certain  evils  attendant  on  luxury.  But  I 
think  it  may  be  clearly  shown,  and  that  it  is  universally 
acknowledged,  that  national  wealth  produces  individual 
well-being.  If  this  be  so,  the  argument  of  my  friend  the 
Canadian  is  naught. 

To  the  feeling  of  a  refined  gentleman,  or  of  a  lady  whose 
eye  loves  to  rest  always  on  the  beautiful,  an  agricultural 
population  that  touches  its  hat,  eats  plain  victuals,  and 
goes  to  church,  is  more  picturesque  and  delightful  than  the 
thronged  crowd  of  a  great  city,  by  which  a  lady  and  gen- 
tleman is  hustled  without  remorse,  which  never  touches  its 
hat,  and  perhaps  also  never  goes  to  church.  And  as  we 
are  always  tempted  to  approve  of  that  which  we  like,  and 
to  think  that  that  which  is  good  to  us  is  good  altogether, 
we — the  refined  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  England  I  mean — 
are  very  apt  to  prefer  the  hat  touchers  to  those  who  are 
not  hat  touchers.  In  doing  so  we  intend,  and  wish,  and 
strive  to  be  philanthropical.  We  argue  to  ourselves  that 
the  dear,  excellent  lower  classes  receive  an  immense  amount 
of  consoling  happiness  from  that  ceremony  of  hat  touching, 
and  quite  pity  those  who,  unfortunately  for  themselves,  know 
nothing  about  it.    I  would  ask  any  such  lady  ov  gentle- 


CANADA. 


65 


man  whether  he  or  she  does  not  feel  a  certain  amount  of 
commiseration  for  the  rudeness  of  the  town-bred  artisan 
who  walks  about  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  as  though  he 
recognized  a  superior  in  no  one  ? 

But  that  which  is  good  and  pleasant  to  us  is  often  not 
good  and  pleasant  altogether.  Every  man's  chief  object  is 
himself;  and  the  philanthropist  should  endeavor  to  regard 
this  question,  not  from  his  own  point  of  view,  but  from 
that  which  would  be  taken  by  the  individuals  for  whose 
happiness  he  is  anxious.  The  honest,  happy  rustic  makes 
a  very  pretty  picture ;  and  I  hope  that  honest  rustics  are 
happy.  But  the  man  who  earns  two  shillings  a  day  in  the 
country  would  always  prefer  to  earn  five  in  the  town.  The 
man  who  finds  himself  bound  to  touch  his  hat  to  the  squire 
would  be  glad  to  dispense  with  that  ceremony,  if  circum- 
stances would  permit.  A  crowd  of  greasy-coated  town 
artisans,  with  grimy  hands  and  pale  faces,  is  not  in  itself 
delectable ;  but  each  of  that  crowd  has  probably  more  of 
the  goods  of  life  than  any  rural  laborer.  He  thinks  more, 
reads  more,  feels  more,  sees  more,  hears  more,  learns  more, 
and  lives  more.  It  is  through  great  cities  that  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  world  has  progressed,  and  the  charms  of  life 
been  advanced.  Man  in  his  rudest  state  begins  in  the 
country,  and  in  his  most  finished  state  may  retire  there. 
But  the  battle  of  the  world  has  to  be  fought  in  the  cities ; 
and  the  country  that  shows  the  greatest  city  population  is 
ever  the  one  that  is  going  most  ahead  in  the  world's  his- 
tory. 

If  this  be  so,  I  say  that  the  argument  of  my  Canadian 
friend  was  naught.  It  may  be  that  he  does  not  desire 
crowded  cities,  with  dirty,  independent  artisans;  that  to 
view  small  farmers,  living  sparingly,  but  with  content,  on 
the  sweat  of  their  brows,  are  surer  signs  of  a  country's 
prosperity  than  hives  of  men  and  smoking  chimneys.  He 
has  probably  all  the  upper  classes  of  England  with  him  in 
so  thinking,  and  as  far  as  I  know  the  upper  classes  of  all 
Europe.  But  the  crowds  themselves,  the  thick  masses  of 
which  are  composed  those  populations  which  we  count  by 
millions,  are  against  him.  Up  in  those  regions  which  are 
watered  by  the  great  lakes — Lake  Michigan,  Lake  Huron, 
Lake  Erie,  Lake  Ontario — and  by  the  St.  Lawrence,  the 
country  is  divided  between  Canada  and  the  States.  The 
cities  in  Canada  were  settled  long  before  those  in  the 


56 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


States.  Quebec  and  Montreal  were  important  cities  before 
any  of  the  towns  belonging  to  the  States  had  been  founded. 
But  taking  the  population  of  three  of  each,  including  the 
three  largest  Canadian  towns,  we  find  they  are  as  follows: 
In  Canada,  Quebec  has  60,000;  Montreal,  85,000;  Toron- 
to, 55,000.  In  the  States,  Chicago  has  120,000;  Detroit, 
•70,000;  and  Buffalo,  80,000.  If  the  population  had  been 
equal,  it  would  have  shown  a  great  superiority  in  the  prog- 
ress of  those  belonging  to  the  States,  because  the  towns  of 
Canada  had  so  great  a  start.  But  the  numbers  are  by  no 
means  equal,  showing  instead  avast  preponderance  in  favor 
of  the  States.  There  can  be  no  stronger  proof  that  the 
States  are  advancing  faster  than  Canada,  and  in  fact  doing, 
better  than  Canada. 

Quebec  is  a  very  picturesque  town ;  from  its  natural  ad- 
vantages almost  as  much  so  as  any  town  I  know.  Edin- 
burgh, perhaps,  and  Innspruck  may  beat  it.  But  Quebec 
has  very  little  to  recommend  it  beyond  the  beauty  of  its 
situation.  Its  public  buildings  and  works  of  art  do  not 
deserve  a  long  narrative.  It  stands  at  tne  confluence  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  St.  Charles  Rivers;  the  best  part  of 
the  town  is  built  high  upon  the  rock — the  rock  which  forms 
the  celebrated  plains  of  Abram ;  and  the  view  from  thence 
down  to  the  mountains  which  shut  in  the  St.  Lawrence  is 
magnificent.  The  best  point  of  view  is,  I  think,  from  the 
esplanade,  which  is  distant  some  five  minutes'  walk  from 
the  hotels.  When  that  has  been  seen  by  the  light  of  the 
setting  sun,  and  seen  again,  if  possible,  by  moonlight,  the 
most  considerable  lion  of  Quebec  may  be  regarded  as 
''done,"  and  may  be  ticked  off  from  the  list. 

The  most  considerable  lion,  according  to  my  taste.  Lions 
which  roar  merely  by  the  force  of  association  of  ideas  are 
not  to  me  very  valuable  beasts.  To  many  the  rock  over 
which  Wolfe  climbed  to  the  plains  of  Abram,  and  on  the 
summit  of  which  he  fell  in  the  hour  of  victory,  gives  to 
Quebec  its  chiefest  charm.  But  I  confess  to  being  some- 
what dull  in  such  matters.  I  can  count  up  Wolfe,  and 
realize  his  glory,  and  put  my  hand  as  it  were  upon  his  mon- 
ument, in  my  own  room  at  home  as  well  as  I  can  at  Quebec. 
I  do  not  say  this  boastingly  or  with  pride,  but  truly  ac- 
knowledging a  deficiency.  I  have  never  cared  to  sit  in 
chairs  in  which  old  kings  have  sat,  or  to  have  their  crowns 
upon  my  head. 


FALLS  or  MONTMORENCY. 


57 


^^'evertheless,  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  went  to  see 
tlie  rock,  and  can  only  say,  as  so  many  have  said  before  me, 
that  it  is  very  steep.  It  is  not  a  rock  which  I  think  it 
would  be  difficult  for  any  ordinarily  active  man  to  climb, 
providing,  of  course,  that  he  was  used  to  such  work.  But 
Wolfe  took  regiments  of  men  up  there  at  night,  and  that  in 
face  of  enemies  who  held  the  summits.  One  grieves  that 
he  should  have  fallen  there  and  have  never  tasted  the  sweet 
cup  of  his  own  fame.  For  fame  is  sweet,  and  the  praise  of 
oncs's  brother  men  the  sweetest  draught  which  a  man  can 
drain.  But  now,  and  for  coming  ages,  Wolfe's  name  stands 
higher  than  it  probably  would  have  done  had  he  lived  to 
enjoy  his  reward. 

But  there  is  another  very  worthy  lion  near  Quebec — the 
Falls,  namely,  of  Montmorency.  They  are  eight  miles  from 
the  town,  and  the  road  lies  through  the  suburb  of  St. 
Roch,  and  the  long,  straggling  French  village  of  Beauport. 
These  are  in  themselves  very  interesting,  as  showing  the 
quiet,  orderly,  unimpulsive  manner  in  which  the  French 
Canadians  live.  Such  is  their  character,  although  there 
have  been  such  men  as  Papineau,  and  although  there  have 
been  times  in  which  English  rule  has  been  unpopular  with 
the  French  settlers.  As  far  as  I  could  learn  there  is  no 
such  feeling  now.  These  people  are  quiet,  contented;  and, 
as  regards  a  sufficiency  of  the  simple  staples  of  living,  suf- 
ficiently well  to  do.  They  are  thrifty,  but  they  do  not 
thrive.  They  do  not  advance,  and  push  ahead,  and  become 
a  bigger  people  from  year  to  year,  as  settlers  in  a  new 
country  should  do.  They  do  not  even  hold  their  own  in 
comparison  Avith  those  around  them.  But  has  not  this 
always  been  the  case  with  colonists  out  of  France  ;  and  has 
it  not  always  been  the  case  with  Roman  Catholics  when 
they  have  been  forced  to  measure  themselves  against  Prot- 
estants? As  to  the  ultimate  fate  in  the  world  of  this 
people,  one  can  hardly  form  a  speculation.  There  are,  as 
nearly  as  I  could  learn,  about  800,000  of  them  in  Lower 
Canada;  but  it  seems  that  the  wealth  and  commercial  en- 
terprise of  the  country  is  passing  out  of  their  hands.  Mon- 
treal, and  even  Quebec,  are,  I  think,  becoming  less  and  less 
French  every  day;  but  in  the  villages  and  on  the  small 
farms  the  French  still  remain,  keeping  up  their  language, 
their  habits,  and  their  religion.  In  the  cities  they  are  be- 
coming hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water.     I  am 


58 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


inclined  to  think  tliat  tlie  same  will  ultimately  be  their  fate 
in  the  country.  Surely  one  may  declare  as  a  fact  that  a 
Roman  Catholic  population  can  never  hold  its  ground 
against  one  that  is  Protestant.  I  do  not  speak  of  numbers ; 
for  the  Roman  Catholics  will  increase  and  multiply,  and 
stick  by  their  religion,  although  their  religion  entails  pov- 
erty and  dependence,  as  they  have  done  and  still  do  in  Ire- 
land. But  in  progress  and  wealth  the  Romanists  have 
always  gone  to  the  wall  when  the  two  have  been  made  to 
compete  together.  And  yet  I  love  their  religion.  There 
is  something  beautiful,  and  almost  divine,  in  the  faith  and 
obedience  of  a  true  son  of  the  Holy  Mother.  I  sometimes 
fancy  that  I  v/ould  fain  be  a  Roman  Catholic — if  I  could  ; 
as  also  I  would  often  wish  to  be  still  a  child — if  that  were 
possible. 

All  this  is  on  the  way  to  the  Falls  of  Montmorency. 
These  falls  are  placed  exactly  at  the  mouth  of  the  little 
river  of  the  same  name,  so  that  it  may  be  said  absolutely 
to  fall  into  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  people  of  the  country, 
however,  declare  that  the  river  into  which  the  waters  of  the 
Montmorency  fall  is  not  the  St.  Lawrence,  but  the  Charles. 
Without  a  map  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  explain  this. 
The  River  Cliarles  appears  to,  and  in  fact  does,  run  into 
the  St.  Lawrence  just  below  Quebec.  But  the  waters  do 
not  mix.  The  thicker,  browner  stream  of  the  lesser  river 
still  keeps  the  northeastern  bank  till  it  comes  to  the  Island 
of  Orleans,  which  lies  in  the  river  five  or  six  miles  below 
Quebec.  Here  or  hereabouts  are  the  Falls  of  the  Mont- 
morency, and  then  the  great  river  is  divided  for  twenty-five 
miles  by  the  Isle  of  Orleans.  It  is  said  that  the  waters  of 
the  Charles  and  the  St.  Lawrence  do  not  mix  till  they  meet 
each  other  at  the  foot  of  this  island. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  am  particularly  happy  at  describing 
a  waterfall,  and  what  little  capacity  I  may  have  in  this  way 
I  would  wish  to  keep  for  Kiagara.  One  thing  I  can  say 
very  positively  about  Montmorency,  and  one  piece  of  advice 
I  can  give  to  those  who  visit  the  falls.  The  place  from 
which  to  see  them  is  not  the  horrible  little  wooden  temple 
which  has  been  built  immediately  over  them  on  that  side 
which  lies  nearest  to  Quebec.  The  stranger  is  put  down  at 
a  gate  through  which  a  path  leads  to  this  temple,  and  at 
which  a  woman  demands  from  him  twenty-five  cents  for  the 
privilege  of  entrance.  Let  him  by  all  means  pay  the  twenty- 


FALLS  OF  MONTMORENCY. 


59 


five  cents.  Why  should  he  attempt  to  see  the  falls  for  no- 
thing, seeing  that  this  woman  has  a  vested  interest  in  the 
showing  of  them  ?  I  declare  that  if  I  thought  that  I  should 
hinder  this  woman  from  her  perquisites  by  what  I  write,  I 
would  leave  it  unwritten,  and  let  my  readers  pursue  their 
course  to  the  temple — to  their  manifest  injury.  But  they 
will  pay  the  twenty-five  cents.  Then  let  them  cross  over 
the  bridge,  eschewing  the  temple,  and  wander  round  on  the 
open  field  till  they  get  the  view  of  the  falls,  and  the  view 
of  Quebec  also,  from  the  other  side.  It  is  worth  the  twenty- 
five  cents  and  the  hire  of  the  carriage  also.  Immediately 
over  the  falls  there  was  a  suspension  bridge,  of  which  the 
supporting,  or  rather  non-supporting,  pillars  are  still  to  be 
seen.  But  the  bridge  fell  down,  one  day,  into  the  river; 
and — alas  !  alas  ! — with  the  bridge  fell  down  an  old  woman, 
and  a  boy,  and  a  cart — a  cart  and  horse — and  all  found  a 
watery  grave  together  in  the  spray.  'No  attempt  has  been 
made  since  that  to  renew  the  suspension  bridge  ;  but  the 
present  wooden  bridge  has  been  built  higher  up  in  lieu 
of  it. 

Strangers  naturally  visit  Quebec  in  summer  or  autumn, 
seeing  that  a  Canada  winter  is  a  season  with  which  a  man 
cannot  trifle  ;  but  I  imagine  that  the  mid-winter  is  the  best 
time  for  seeing  the  Falls  of  Montmorency.  The  water  in 
its  fall  is  dashed  into  spray,  and  that  spray  becomes  frozen, 
till  a  cone  of  ice  is  formed  immediately  under  the  cataract, 
which  gradually  rises  till  the  temporary  glacier  reaches 
nearly  half  way  to  the  level  of  the  higher  river.  Up  this 
men  climb — and  ladies  also,  I  am  told — and  then  descend, 
with  pleasant  rapidity,  on  sledges  of  wood,  sometimes  not 
without  an  innocent  tumble  in  the  descent.  As  we  were  at 
Quebec  in  September,  we  did  not  experience  the  delights 
of  this  pastime. 

As  I  was  too  early  for  the  ice  cone  under  the  Montmo- 
rency Falls,  so  also  was  I  too  late  to  visit  the  Saguenay 
River,  which  runs  into  the  St.  Lawrence  some  hundred  miles 
below  Quebec.  I  presume  that  the  scenery  of  the  Saguenay 
is  the  finest  in  Canada.  During  the  summer  steamers  run 
down  the  St.  Lawrence  and  up  the  Saguenay,  but  I  was  too 
late  for  them.  An  offer  was  made  to  us  through  the  kind- 
ness of  Sir  Edmund  Head,  who  was  then  the  Governor- 
General,  of  the  use  of  a  steam-tug  belonging  to  a  gentleman 
who  carries  on  a  large  commercial  enterprise  at  Chicoutimi, 


60 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


far  up  tlie  Saguenay ;  but  an  acceptance  of  this  offer  would 
Lave  entailed  some  delay  at  Quebec,  and,  as  we  were  anx- 
ious to  get  into  the  Northwestern  States  before  the  winter 
commenced,  we  were  obliged  with  great  regret  to  decline 
the  journey. 

I  feel  bound  to  say  that  a  stranger,  regarding  Quebec 
merely  as  a  town,  finds  very  much  of  which  he  cannot  but 
complain.  The  footpaths  through  the  streets  are  almost 
entirely  of  wood,  as  indeed  seems  to  be  general  throughout 
Cahada.  Wood  is,  of  course,  the  cheapest  material ;  and, 
though  it  may  not  be  altogether  good  for  such  a  purpose, 
it  would  not  create  animadversion  if  it  were  kept  in  tolera- 
ble order.  But  in  Quebec  the  paths  are  intolerably  bad. 
They  are  full  of  holes.  The  boards  are  rotten,  and  worn  in 
some  places  to  dirt.  The  nails  have  gone,  and  the  broken 
planks  go  up  and  down  under  the  feet,  and  in  the  dark  they 
are  absolutely  dangerous.  But  if  the  paths  are  bad,  the 
road-ways  are  worse.  The  street  through  the  lower  town 
along  the  quays  is,  I  think,  the  most  disgraceful  thorough- 
fare I  ever  saw  in  any  town.  I  believe  the  whole  of  it,  or 
at  any  rate  a  great  portion,  has  been  paved  with  wood ;  but 
the  boards  have  been  worked  into  mud,  and  the  ground 
under  the  boards  has  been  worked  into  holes,  till  the  street 
is  more  like  the  bottom  of  a  filthy  ditch  than  a  road-way 
through  one  of  the  most  thickly  populated  parts  of  a  city. 
Had  Quebec  in  Wolfe's  time  been  as  it  is  now,  Wolfe  would 
have  stuck  in  the  mud  between  the  river  and  the  rock  before 
he  reached  the  point  which  he  desired  to  climb.  In  the 
upper  town  the  roads  are  not  as  bad  as  they  are  below,  but 
still  they  are  very  bad.  I  was  told  that  this  arose  from  dis- 
putes among  the  municipal  corporations.  Everything  in 
Canada  relating  to  roads,  and  a  very  great  deal  affecting 
the  internal  government  of  the  people,  is  done  by  these 
municipalities.  It  is  made  a  subject  of  great  boast  in  Can- 
ada that  the  communal  authorities  do  carry  on  so  large  a 
part  of  the  public  business,  and  that  they  do  it  generally  so 
well  and  at  so  cheap  a  rate.  I  have  nothing  to  say  against 
this,  and,  as  a  whole,  believe  that  the  boast  is  true.  I  must 
protest,  however,  that  the  streets  of  the  greater  cities — for 
Montreal  is  nearly  as  bad  as  Quebec — prove  the  rule  by  a 
very  sad  exception.  The  municipalities  of  which  I  speak 
extend,  I  believe,  to  all  Canada — the  two  provinces  being 
divided  into  counties,  and  the  counties  subdivided  into 


SHERBROOKE. 


61 


townships,  to  which,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  municipali- 
ties are  attaclied. 

From  Quebec  to  Montreal  there  are  two  modes  of  travel. 
There  are  the  steamers  up  the  St.  Lawrence,  which,  as  all 
the  world  know,  is,  or  at  any  rate  hitherto  has  been,  the 
high-road  of  the  Canadas ;  and  there  is  the  Grand  Trunk 
Kailway.  Passengers  choosing  the  latter  go  toward  Port- 
land as  far  as  Richmond,  and  there  join  the  main  line  of  the 
road,  passing  from  Richmond  on  to  Montreal.  We  learned 
while  at  Quebec  that  it  behooved  us  not  to  leave  the  colony 
till  we  had  seen  the  lake  and  mountains  of  Memphrema- 
gog ;  and,  as  we  were  clearly  neglecting  our  duty  with  re- 
gard to  the  Saguenay,  we  felt  bound  to  make  such  amends 
as  lay  in  our  power  by  deviating  from  our  way  to  the  lake 
above  named.  In  order  to  do  this  we  were  obliged  to  choose 
the  railway,  and  to  go  back  beyond  Richmond  to  the  sta-  - 
tion  at  Sherbrooke.  Sherbrooke  is  a  large  village  on  the 
confines  of  Canada,  and,  as  it  is  on  the  railway,  will  no 
doubt  become  a  large  town.  It  is  very  prettily  situated  on 
the  meeting  of  two  rivers ;  it  has  three  or  four  churches, 
and  intends  to  thrive.  It  possesses  two  newspapers,  of  the 
prosperity  of  which  I  should  be  inclined  to  feel  less  assured. 
The  annual  subscription  to  such  a  newspaper,  published 
twice  a  week,  is  ten  shillings.  A  sale  of  a  thousand  copies 
is  not  considered  bad.  Such  a  sale  would  produce  £500  a 
year ;  and  this  would,  if  entirely  devoted  to  that  purpose, 
give  a  moderate  income  to  a  gentleman  qualified  to  conduct 
a  newspaper.  But  the  paper  and  printing  must  cost  some- 
thing, and  the  capital  invested  should  receive  its  proper  re- 
muneration. And  then — such  at  least  is  the  general  idea — 
the  getting  together  of  nevrs  and  the  framing  of  intelligence 
is  a  costly  operation.  I  can  only  hope  that  all  this  is  paid 
for  by  the  advertisements,  for  I  must  trust  that  the  editors 
do  not  receive  less  than  the  moderate  sum  above  named. 
At  Sherbrooke  we  are  still  in  Lower  Canada.  Indeed,  as 
regards  distance,  we  are  when  there  nearly  as  far  removed 
from  Upper  Canada  as  at  Quebec.  But  the  race  of  people 
here  is  very  different.  The  French  population  had  made 
their  way  down  into  these  townships  before  the  English  and 
American  war  broke  out,  but  had  not  done  so  in  great 
numbers.  The  country  was  then  very  unapproachable,  being 
far  to  the  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  far  also  from  any 
great  line  of  internal  communication  toward  the  Atlantic. 

6 


62 


NORTH  AMEllICA. 


But,  nevertheless,  many  settlers  made  their  way  in  here 
from  the  States — men  who  preferred  to  live  under  British 
rule,  and  perhaps  doubted  the  stability  of  the  new  order  of 
things.  They  or  their  children  have  remained  here  since  ; 
and,  as  the  whole  country  has  been  opened  up  by  the  rail- 
way, many  others  have  flocked  in.  Thus  a  better  class  of 
people  than  the  French  hold  possession  of  the  larger  farms, 
and  are  on  the  whole  doing  well.  I  am  told  that  many 
Americans  are  now  coming  here,  driven  over  the  borders 
from  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Yermont  by  fears  of  the 
war  and  the  weight  of  taxation.  I  do  not  think  that  fears 
of  war  or  the  paying  of  taxes  drive  many  individuals  away 
from  home.  Men  who  would  be  so  influenced  have  not  the 
amount  of  foresight  which  would  induce  them  to  avoid  such 
evils ;  or,  at  any  rate,  such  fears  would  act  slowly.  La- 
borers, however,  will  go  where  work  is  certain,  where  work 
is  well  paid,  and  where  the  wages  to  be  earned  will  give 
plenty  in  return.  It  may  be  that  work  will  become  scarce 
in  the  States,  as  it  has  done  with  those  poor  jewelers  at 
Attleborough  of  whom  we  spoke,  and  that  food  will  become 
dear.  If  this  be  so,  laborers  from  the  States  will  no  doubt 
find  their  way  into  Canada. 

From  Sherbrooke  we  went  with  the  mails  on  a  pair- 
horse  wagon  to  Magog.  Cross-country  mails  are  not  inter- 
esting to  the  generality  of  readers,  but  I  have  a  professional 
liking  for  them  myself.  I  have  spent  the  best  part  of  my 
life  in  looking  after,  and  I  hope  in  improving,  such  mails; 
and  I  always  endeavor  to  do  a  stroke  of  work  when  I  come 
across  them.  I  learned  on  this  occasion  that  the  convey- 
ance of  mails  with  a  pair  of  horses,  in  Canada,  costs  little 
more  than  half  what  is  paid  for  the  same  work  in  England 
with  one  horse,  and  something  less  than  what  is  paid  in 
Ireland,  also  for  one  horse.  But  in  Canada  the  average 
pace  is  only  five  miles  an  hour.  In  Ireland  it  is  seven,  and 
the  time  is  accurately  kept,  which  does  not  seem  to  be  the 
case  in  Canada.  In  England  the  pace  is  eight  miles  an 
hour.  In  Canada  and  in  Ireland  these  conveyances  carry 
passengers;  but  in  England  they  are  prohibited  from  doing  * 
so.  In  Canada  the  vehicles  are  much  better  got  up  than 
they  are  in  England,  and  the  horses  too  look  better.  Taking 
Ireland  as  a  whole,  they  are  more  respectable  in  appear- 
ance there  than  in  England.  From  all  which  it  appears 
that  pace  is  the  article  that  costs  the  highest  price,  and 


THE  owl's  head. 


63 


that  appearance  docs  not  go  for  much  in  the  bill.  In  Can- 
ada the  roads  arc  very  bad  in  comparison  with  the  English 
or  Irish  roads;  but,  to  make  up  for  this,  the  price  of  forage 
is  very  low. 

I  have  said  that  the  cross-mail  conveyances  in  Canada 
did  not  seem  to  be  very  closely  bound  as  to  time ;  but  they 
are  regulated  by  clock-work  in  comparison  with  some  of 
them  in  the  United  States.  "Are  you  going  this  morn- 
ing?" I  said  to  a  mail-driver  in  Vermont.  "I  thought  you 
always  started  in  the  evening."  *'Wa'll,  I  guess  I  do;  but 
it  rained  some  last  night,  so  I  jist  stayed  at  home."  I  do 
not  know  that  I  ever  felt  more  shocked  in  my  life,  and  I 
could  hardly  keep  my  tongue  off  the  man.  The  mails,  how- 
ever, would  have  paid  no  respect  to  me  in  Vermont,  and  I 
was  obliged  to  v/alk  away  crest-fallen. 

We  went  with  the  mails  from  Sherbrooke  to  a  village 
called  Magog,  at  the  outlet  of  the  lake,  and  from  thence 
by  a  steamer  up  the  lake,  to  a  solitary  hotel  called  the 
Mountain  House,  which  is  built  at  the  foot  of  the  mount- 
ain, on  the  shore,  and  which  is  surrounded  on  every  side  by 
thick  forest.  There  is  no  road  within  two  miles  of  the 
house.  The  lake  therefore  is  the  only  highway,  and  that  is 
frozen  up  for  four  months  in  the  year.  When  frozen,  how- 
ever, it  is  still  a  road,  for  it  is  passable  for  sledges.  I  have 
seldom  been  in  a  house  that  seemed  so  remote  from  the 
world,  and  so  little  -within  reach  of  doctors,  parsons,  or 
butchers.  Bakers  in  this  country  are  not  required,  as  all 
persons  make  their  own  bread.  But  in  spite  of  its  position 
the  hotel  is  well  kept,  and  on  the  whole  we  were  more  com- 
fortable there  than  at  any  other  inn  in  Lower  Canada.  The 
Mountain  House  is  but  five  miles  from  the  borders  of  Ver- 
mont, in  which  State  the  head  of  the  lake  lies.  The  steamer 
which  brought  us  runs  on  to  ^^ewport,  or  rather  from  jS"ew- 
port  to  Magog  and  back  again.  And  Newport  is  in  Ver- 
mont. 

The  one*  thing  to  be  done  at  the  Mountain  House  is  the 
ascent  of  the  mountain  called  the  Owl's  Head.  The  world 
there  offers  nothing  else  of  active  enterprise  to  the  traveler, 
unless  fishing  be  considered  an  active  enterprise.  I  am  not 
capable  of  fishing,  therefore  we  resolved  on  going  up  the 
Owl's  Head.  To  dine  in  the  middle  of  the  day  is  abso- 
lutely imperative  at  these  hotels,  and  thus  we  were  driven 
to  select  either  the  morning  or  the  afternoon.  Evening 


64 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


lights  WG  declared  were  the  best  for  all  views,  and  therefore 
we  decided  on  the  afternoon.  It  is  but  two  miles;  but 
then,  as  we  were  told  more  than  once  bj  those  who  had 
spoken  to  us  on  the  subject,  those  two  miles  are  not  like 
other  miles.  "  I  doubt  if  the  lady  can  do  it,"  one  man  said 
to  me.  I  asked  if  ladies  did  not  sometimes  go  up.  ''Yes; 
young  women  do,  at  times,"  he  said.  After  that  my  wife 
resolved  that  she  would  see  the  top  of  the  Owl's  Head,  or 
die  in  the  attempt,  and  so  we  started.  They  never  think 
of  sending  a  guide  with  one  in  these  places,  whereas  in 
Europe  a  traveler  is  not  allowed  to  go  a  step  without  one. 
When  I  asked  for  one  to  show  us  the  way  up  Mount  Wash- 
ington, I  was  told  that  there  were  no  idle  boys  about  that 
place.  The  path  was  indicated  to  us,  and  off  we  started 
with  high  hopes. 

I  have  been  up  many  mountains,  and  have  climbed  some 
that  were  perhaps  somewhat  dangerous  in  their  ascent. 
In  climbing  the  Owl's  Head  there  is  no  danger.  One  is 
closed  in  by  thick  trees  the  whole  way.  But  I  doubt  if 
I  ever  went  up  a  steeper  ascent.  It  was  very  hard  work, 
but  we  were  not  beaten.  We  reached  the  top,  and  there 
sitting  down,  thoroughly  enjoyed  our  victory.  It  was  then 
half-past  five  o'clock,  and  the  sun  was  not  yet  absolutely 
sinking.  It  did  not  seem  to  give  us  any  warning  that  we 
should  especially  require  its  aid,  and,  as  the  prospect  below 
us  was  very  lovely,  we  remained  there  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour.  The  ascent  of  the  Owl's  Head  is  certainly  a  thing 
to  do,  and  I  still  think,  in  spite  of  our  following  misfortune, 
that  it  is  a  thing  to  do  late  in  the  afternoon.  The  view 
down  upon  the  lakes  and  the  forests  around,  and  on  the 
wooded  hills  below,  is  wonderfully  lovely.  I  never  was  on 
a  mountain  which  gave  me  a  more  perfect  command  of  all 
the  country  round.  But  as  we  arose  to  descend  we  saw  a 
little  cloud  coming  toward  us  from  over  jS'ewport. 

The  little  cloud  came  on  with  speed,  and  we  had  hardly 
freed  ourselves  from  the  rocks  of  the  summit  before  we 
were  surrounded  by  rain.  As  the  rain  became  thicker,  we 
were  surrounded  by  darkness  also,  or,  if  not  by  darkness, 
by  so  dim  a  light  that  it  became  a  task  to  find  our  path. 
I  still  thought  that  the  daylight  had  not  gone,  and  that  as 
we  descended,  and  so  escaped  from  the  cloud,  we  should 
find  light  enough  to  guide  us.  But  it  was  not  so.  The 
rain  soon  became  a  matter  of  indifference,  and  so  also  did 


CANADIAN  FEELINO. 


65 


the  rand  and  briers  beneath  our  feet.  Even  the  steepness 
of  the  way  was  ahnost  forgotten  as  we  endeavored  to  thread 
our  path  through  the  forest  before  it  should  become  im- 
possible to  discern  the  track.  A  dog  had  followed  us  up, 
and  though  the  beast  would  not  stay  with  us  so  as  to  be 
our  guide,  he  returned  ever  and  anon,  and  made  us  aware 
of  his  presence  by  dashing  by  us.  I  may  confess  now  that  * 
I  became  much  frightened.  We  were  wet  through,  and  a 
night  out  in  the  forest  would  have  been  unpleasant  to  us. 
At  last  I  did  utterly  lose  the  track.  It  had  become  quite 
dark,  so  dark  that  we  could  hardly  see  each  other.  We 
had  succeeded  in  getting  down  the  steepest  and  worst  part 
of  the  mountain,  but  we  were  still  among  dense  forest  trees, 
and  up  to  our  knees  in  mud.  But  the  people  at  the  Mount- 
ain House  were  Christians,  and  men  with  lanterns  were 
sent  hallooing  after  us  through  the  dark  night.  When  we 
were  thus  found  we  were  not  many  yards  from  the  path, 
but  unfortunately  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  stream.  Through 
that  we  waded,  and  then  made  our  way  in  safety  to  the  inn. 
In  spite  of  which  misadventure  I  advise  all  travelers  in 
Lower  Canada  to  go  up  the  Owl's  Head. 

On  the  following  day  we  crossed  the  lake  to  Georgeville, 
and  drove  around  another  lake  called  the  Massawhippi  back 
to  Sherbrooke.  This  was  all  very  well,  for  it  showed  us  a 
part  of  the  country  which  is  comparatively  well  tilled,  and 
has  been  long  settled ;  but  the  Massawhippi  itself  is  not 
worth  a  visit.  The  route  by  which  we  returned  occupies  a 
longer  time  than  the  other,  and  is  more  costly,  as  it  must  be 
made  in  a  hired  vehicle.  The  people  here  are  quiet,  orderly, 
and  I  should  say  a  little  slow.  It  is  manifest  that  a  strong 
feeling  against  the  Northern  States  has  lately  sprung  up. 
This  is  much  to  be  deprecated,  but  I  cannot  but  say  that  it 
is  natural.  It  is  not  that  the  Canadians  have  any  special 
secession  feelings,  or  that  they  have  entered  with  peculiar 
warmth  into  the  questions  of  American  politics ;  but  they 
have  been  vexed  and  acerbated  by  the  braggadocio  of  the 
JSTorthern  States.  They  constantly  hear  that  they  are  to 
be  invaded,  and  translated  into  citizens  of  the  Union ;  that 
British  rule  is  to  be  swept  off  the  continent,  and  that  the 
star-spangled  banner  is  to  be  waved  over  them  in  pity. 
The  star-spangled  banner  is  in  fact  a  fine  flag,  and  has 
waved  to  some  purpose ;  but  those  who  live  near  it,  and 
not  under  it,  fancy  that  they  hear  too  much  of  it.    At  the 

6* 


66 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


present  moment  the  loyalty  of  both  the  Canadas  to  Great 
Britain  is  beyond  all  question.  From  all  that  I  can  hear, 
I  doubt  whether  this  feeling  in  the  provinces  was  ever  so 
strong,  and  under  such  circumstances  American  abuse  of 
England  and  American  braggadocio  is  more  than  usually 
distasteful.  All  this  abuse  and  all  this  braggadocio  come 
to  Canada  from  the  Northern  States,  and  therefore  the 
Southern  cause  is  at  the  present  moment  the  more  popular 
with  them. 

I  have  said  that  the  Canadians  hereabouts  are  somewhat 
slow.  As  we  were  driving  back  to  Sherbrooke  it  became 
necessary  that  we  should  rest  for  an  hour  or  so  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day,  and  for  this  purpose  we  stopped  at  a  village 
inn.  It  was  a  large  house,  in  which  there  appeared  to  be 
three  public  sitting-rooms  of  ample  size,  one  of  which  was 
occupied  as  the  bar.  In  this  there  were  congregated  some 
six  or  seven  men,  seated  in  arm-chairs  round  a  stove,  and 
among  these  I  placed  myself  No  one  spoke  a  word  either 
to  me  or  to  any  one  else.  No  one  smoked,  and  no  one 
read,  nor  did  they  even  whittle  sticks.  I  asked  a  question, 
first  of  one  and  then  of  another,  and  was  answered  with 
monosyllables.  So  I  gave  up  any  hope  in  that  direction, 
and  sat  staring  at  the  big  stove  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
as  the  others  did.  Presently  another  stranger  entered,  hav- 
ing arrived  in  a  wagon,  as  I  had  done.  He  entered  the 
room  and  sat  down,  addressing  no  one,  and  addressed  by 
no  one.  After  awhile,  however,  he  spoke.  "Will  there 
be  any  chance  of  dinner  here  ?"  he  said.  "I  guess  there'll 
be  dinner  by-and-by,"  answered  the  landlord,  and  then  there 
was  silence  for  another  ten  minutes,  during  which  the 
stranger  stared  at  the  stove.  "Is  that  dinner  any  way 
ready?"  he  asked  again.  "I  guess  it  is,"  said  the  landlord. 
And  then  the  stranger  v/ent  out  to  see  after  his  dinner 
himself.  When  we  started,  at  the  end  of  an  hour,  nobody 
said  anything  to  us.  The  driver  "hitched"  on  the  horses, 
as  they  call  it,  and  we  started  on  our  way,  having  been 
charged  nothing  for  our  accommodation.  That  some  profit 
arose  from  the  horse  provender  is  to  be  hoped. 

On  the  following  day  we  reached  Montreal,  which,  as  I 
have  said  before,  is  the  commercial  capital  of  the  two  Prov- 
inces. This  question  of  the  capitals  is  at  the  present  mo- 
ment a  subject  of  great  interest  in  Canada ;  but,  as  I  shall 
be  driven  to  say  something  on  the  matter  when  I  report 


GRAND  TRUNK  RAILWAY. 


67 


myself  as  beinf^  at  Ottawa,  I  will  refrain  now.  There  are 
two  special  public  affairs  at  the  present  moment  to  interest 
a  traveler  in  Canada.  The  first  I  have  named,  and  the 
second  is  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway.  I  have  already  stated 
what  is  the  course  of  this  line.  It  runs  from  the  Western 
State  of  Michigan  to  Portland,  on  the  Atlantic,  in  the  State 
of  Ataine,  sweeping  the  whole  length  of  Canada  in  its  route. 
It  was  originally  made  by  three  companies.  The  Atlantic 
and  St.  Lawrence  constructed  it  from  Portland  to  Island 
Pond,  on  the  borders  of  the  States.  The  St.  Lawrence  and 
Atlantic  took  it  from  the  southeastern  side  of  the  river  at 
Montreal  to  the  same  point,  viz.,  Island  Pond.  And  the 
Grand  Trunk  Company  have  made  it  from  Detroit  to  Mon- 
treal, crossing  the  river  there  with  a  stupendous  tubular 
bridge,  and  have  also  made  the  branch  connecting  the  main 
line  with  Quebec  and  Riviere  du  Loup.  This  latter  com- 
pany is  now  incorporated  with  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Atlan- 
tic, but  has  only  leased  the  portion  of  the  line  running  through 
the  States.  This  they  have  done,  guaranteeing  the  share- 
holders an  interest  of  six  per  cent.  There  never  was  a 
grander  enterprise  set  on  foot.  I  will  not  say  there  never 
was  one  more  unfortunate,  for  is  there  not  the  Great  East- 
ern, which,  by  the  weight  and  constancy  of  its  failures,  de- 
mands for  itself  a  proud  pre-eminence  of  misfortune  ?  But 
surely  the  Grand  Trunk  comes  next  to  it.  I  presume  it  to 
be  quite  out  of  the  question  that  the  shareholders  should 
get  any  interest  whatever  on  their  shares  for  years.  The 
company,  when  I  was  at  Montreal,  had  not  paid  the  interest 
due  to  the  Atlantic  and  St.  Lawrence  Company  for  the  last 
year,  and  there  was  a  doubt  whether  the  lease  would  not  be 
broken.  No  party  that  had  advanced  money  to  the  under- 
taking was  able  to  recover  what  had  been  advanced.  I  be- 
lieve that  one  fi.rm  in  London  had  lent  nearly  a  million  to 
the  company,  and  is  now  willing  to  accept  half  the  sum  so 
lent  in  quittance  of  the  whole  debt.  In  1860  the  line  could 
not  carry  the  freight  that  offered,  not  having  or  being  able 
to  obtain  the  necessary  rolling  stock ;  and  on  all  sides  I 
heard  men  discussing  whether  the  line  would  be  kept  open 
for  traflfic.  The  government  of  Canada  advanced  to  the 
company  three  millions  of  money,  with  an  understanding 
that  neither  interest  nor  principal  should  be  demanded  till 
all  other  debts  were  paid  and  all  shareholders  in  receipt  of 
six  per  cent,  interest.    But  the  three  millions  were  clogged 


68 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


with  conditions  which,  though  they  have  been  of  service  to 
the  country,  have  been  so  expensive  to  the  company  that  it 
is  hardly  more  solvent  with  it  than  it  would  have  been  with- 
out it.  As  it  is,  the  whole  property  seems  to  be  involved 
in  ruin ;  and  yet  the  line  is  one  of  the  grandest  commercial 
conceptions  that  was  ever  carried  out  on  the  face  of  the 
globe,  and  in  the  process  of  a  few  years  will  do  more  to 
make  bread  cheap  in  England  than  any  other  single  enter- 
prise that  exists. 

I  do  not  know  that  blame  is  to  be  attached  to  any  one. 
I  at  least  attach  no  such  blame.  Probably  it  might  be  easy 
now  to  show  that  the  road  might  have  been  made  with  suf- 
ficient accommodation  for  ordinary  purposes  without  some 
of  the  more  costly  details.  The  great  tubular  bridge,  on  which 
was  expended  £1,300,000,  might,  I  should  think,  have  been 
dispensed  with.  The  Detroit  end  of  the  line  might  have 
been  left  for  later  time.  As  it  stands  now,  however,  it  is  a 
wonderful  operation  carried  to  a  successful  issue  as  far  as 
the  public  are  concerned ;  and  one  can  only  grieve  that  it 
should  be  so  absolute  a  failure  to  those  who  have  placed 
their  money  in  it.  There  are  schemes  which  seem  to  be  too  big 
for  men  to  work  out  with  any  ordinary  regard  to  profit  and 
loss.  The  Great  Eastern  is  one,  and  this  is  another.  The 
national  advantage  arising  from  such  enterprises  is  immense ; 
but  the  wonder  is  that  men  should  be  found  willing  to  em- 
bark their  money  where  the  risk  is  so  great  and  the  return 
even  hoped  for  is  so  small. 

While  I  was  in  Canada  some  gentlemen  were  there  from 
the  Lower  Provinces — Nova  Scotia,  that  is,  and  'New  Bruns- 
wick— agitating  the  subject  of  another  great  line  of  railway, 
from  Quebec  to  Halifax.  The  project  is  one  in  favor  of 
which  very  much  may  be  said.  In  a  national  point  of  view 
an  Englishman  or  a  Canadian  cannot  but  regret  that  there 
should  be  no  winter  mode  of  exit  from,  or  entrance  to,  Can- 
ada, except  through  the  United  States.  The  St.  Lawrence 
is  blocked  up  for  four  or  five  months  in  winter,  and  the 
steamers  which  run  to  Quebec  in  the  summer  run  to  Port- 
land during  the  season  of  ice.  There  is  at  present  no  mode 
cf  public  conveyance  between  the  Canadas  and  the  Lower 
Provinces ;  and  an  immense  district  of  country  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Lower  Canada,  through  New  Brunswick,  and  into 
Nova  Scotia,  is  now  absolutely  closed  against  civilization, 
which  by  such  a  railway  would  be  opened  up  to  the  light 


MONTREAL. 


69 


of  day.  We  all  know  how  much  the  want  of  sucli  a  road 
was  felt  when  our  troops  were  being  forwarded  to  Canada 
during  the  last  winter.  It  was  necessary  they  should  reach 
their  destination  without  delay ;  and  as  the  river  was  closed, 
and  the  passing  of  troops  through  the  States  was  of  course 
out  of  the  question,  that  long  overland  journey  across  Nova 
Scotia  and  New  Brunswick  became  a  necessity.  It  would 
certainly  be  a  very  great  thing  for  British  interests  if  a  di- 
rect line  could  be  made  from  such  a  port  as  Halifax,  a  port 
which  is  open  throughout  the  whole  year,  up  into  the  Can- 
adas.  If  these  colonies  belonged  to  France  or  to  any  other 
despotic  government,  the  thing  would  be  done.  But  the 
colonies  do  not  belong  to  any  despotic  government. 

Such  a  line  would,  in  fact,  be  a  continuance  of  the  Grand 
Trunk ;  and  who  that  looks  at  the  present  state  of  the 
finances  of  the  Grand  Trunk  can  think  it  to  be  on  the  cards 
that  private  enterprise  should  come  forward  with  more 
money — with  more  millions  ?  The  idea  is  that  England 
will  advance  the  money,  and  that  the  English  House  of 
Commons  will  guarantee  the  interest,  with  some  counter- 
guarantee  from  the  colonies  that  this  interest  shall  be  duly 
paid.  But  it  would  seem  that,  if  such  colonial  guarantee 
is  to  go  for  anything,  the  colonies  might  raise  the  money  in 
the  money  market  without  the  intervention  of  the  British 
House  of  Commons. 

Montreal  is  an  exceedingly  good  commercial  town,  and 
business  there  is  brisk.  It  has  now  85,000  inhabitants. 
Having  said  that  of  it,  I  do  not  know  what  more  there  is 
left  to  say.  Yes  ;  one  word  there  is  to  say  of  Sir  William 
Logan,  the  creator  of  the  Geological  Museum  there,  and 
the  head  of  all  matters  geological  throughout  the  province. 
While  he  was  explaining  to  me  with  admirable  perspicuity 
the  result  of  investigations  into  which  he  had  poured  his 
whole  heart,  I  stood  by,  understanding  almost  nothing,  but 
envying  everything.  That  I  understood  almost  nothing,  I 
know  he  perceived.  That,  ever  and  anon,  with  all  his  gra- 
ciousness,  became  apparent.  But  I  wonder  whether  he 
perceived  also  that  I  did  envy  everything.  I  have  listened 
to  geologists  by  the  hour  before — have  had  to  listen  to 
them,  desirous  simply  of  escape.  I  have  listened,  and  un- 
derstood absolutely  nothing,  and  have  only  wished  myself 
away.  But  I  could  have  listened  to  Sir  William  Logan  for 
the  whole  day,  if  time  allowed.  I  found,  even  in  that  hour, 


TO 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  some  ideas  found  their  way  through  to  me,  and  I  began 
to  fancy  that  even  I  could  become  a  geologist  at  Montreal. 

Over  and  beyond  Sir  William  Logan,  there  is  at  Montreal 
for  strangers  the  drive  round  the  mountain,  not  very  excit- 
ing, and  there  is  the  tubular  bridge  over  the  St.  Lawrence. 
This,  it  must  be  understood,  is  not  made  in  one  tube,  as  is 
that  over  the  Menai  Straits,  but  is  divided  into,  I  think, 
thirteen  tubes.  To  the  eye  there  appear  to  be  twenty-five 
tubes  ;  but  each  of  the  six  side  tubes  is  supported  by  a  pier 
in  the  middle.  A  great  part  of  the  expense  of  the  bridge 
was  incurred  in  sinking  the  shafts  for  these  piers. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

UPPER  CANADA. 

Ottawa  is  in  Upper  Canada,  but  crossing  the  suspension 
bridge  from  Ottawa  into  Hull,  the  traveler  is  in  Lower 
Canada.  It  is  therefore  exactly  in  the  confines,  and  has 
been  chosen  as  the  site  of  the  new  government  capital  very 
much  for  this  reason.  Other  reasons  have  no  doubt  had  a 
share  in  the  decision.  At  the  time  when  the  choice  was 
made  Ottawa  was  not  large  enough  to  create  the  jealousy 
of  the  more  populous  towns.  Though  not  on  the  main 
line  of  railway,  it  was  connected  with  it  by  a  branch  rail- 
way, and  it  is  also  connected  with  the  St.  Lawrence  by 
water  communication.  And  then  it  stands  nobly  on  a  mag- 
nificent river,  with  high,  overhanging  rock,  and  a  natural 
grandeur  of  position  which  has  perhaps  gone  far  in  recom- 
mending it  to  those  whose  voice  in  the  matter  has  been 
potential.  Having  the  world  of  Canada  from  whence  to 
choose  the  site  of  a  new  town,  the  choosers  have  certainly 
chosen  well.  It  is  another  question  whether  or  no  a  new 
town  should  have  been  deemed  necessary. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  explain  the  circumstances  un- 
der which  it  was  thought  expedient  thus  to  establish  a  new 
Canadian  capital.  In  1841,  when  Lord  Sydenham  was 
Governor-General  of  the  provinces,  the  two  Canadas,  sep- 
arate till  then,  were  united  under  one  government.    At  that 


SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT  TOR  THE  CANADAS. 


n 


time  the  people  of  Lower  or  French  Canada,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  Upper  or  English  Canada,  differed  much  more  in 
their  habits  and  lang*uage  than  they  do  now.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  English  have  become  in  any  way  Gallicized, 
but  the  French  have  been  very  materially  Anglicized.  But 
while  this  has  been  in  progress  national  jealousy  has  been 
at  work,  and  even  yet  that  national  jealousy  is  not  at  an 
end.  While  the  two  provinces  were  divided  there  were,  of 
course,  two  capitals,  and  two  seats  of  government.  These 
were  at  Quebec  for  Lower  Canada,  and  at  Toronto  for 
Tipper  Canada,  both  which  towns  are  centrically  situated  as 
regards  the  respective  provinces.  When  the  union  was 
effected,  it  was  deemed  expedient  that  there  should  be  but 
one  capital ;  and  the  small  town  of  Kingstown  was  selected, 
which  is  situated  on  the  lower  end  of  Lake  Ontario,  in  the 
upper  province.  But  Kingstown  was  found  to  be  inconve- 
nient, lacking  space  and  accommodation  for  those  who  had 
to  follow  the  government,  and  the  Governor  removed  it  and 
himself  to  Montreal.  Montreal  is  in  the  lower  province, 
but  is  very  central  to  both  the  provinces;  and  it  is  more- 
over the  chief  town  in  Canada.  This  would  have  done 
very  well  but  for  an  unforeseen  misfortune. 

It  will  be  remembered  by  most  readers  that  in  183Y  took 
place  the  Mackenzie-Papineau  rebellion,  of  which  those 
who  were  then  old  enough  to  be  politicians  heard  so  much 
in  England.  I  am  not  going  back  to  recount  the  history  of 
the  period,  otherwise  than  to  say  that  the  English  Cana- 
dians at  that  time,  in  withstanding  and  combating  the  rebels, 
did  considerable  injury  to  the  property  of  certain  French 
Canadians,  and  that,  when  the  rebellion  had  blown  over  and 
those  in  fault  had  been  pardoned,  a  question  arose  whether 
or  no  the  government  should  make  good  the  losses  of  those 
French  Canadians  who  had  been  injured.  The  English 
Canadians  protested  that  it  would  be  monstrous  that  they 
should  be  taxed  to  repair  damages  suffered  by  rebels,  and 
made  necessary  in  the  suppression  of  rebellion.  The  French 
Canadians  declared  that  the  rebellion  had  been  only  a  just 
assertion  of  their  rights ;  that  if  there  had  been  crime  on 
the  part  of  those  who  took  up  arms,  that  crime  had  been 
condoned,  and  that  the  damages  had  not  fallen  exclusively 
or  even  chiefly  on  those  who  had  done  so.  I  will  give  no 
opinion  on  the  merits  of  the  question,  but  simply  say  that 
blood  ran  very  hot  when  it  was  discussed.    At  last  the 


12 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Houses  of  the  Provincial  Parliament,  then  assembled  at 
Montreal,  decreed  that  the  losses  should  be  made  good  by 
the  public  treasury;  and  the  English  mob  in  Montreal, 
when  this  decree  became  known,  was  roused  to  great  wrath 
by  a  decision  which  seemed  to  be  condemnatory  of  English 
loyalty.  It  pelted  Lord  Elgin,  the  Governor-General,  with 
rotten  eggs,  and  burned  down  the  Parliament  house.  Hence 
there  arose,  not  unnaturally,  a  strong  feeling  of  anger  on 
the  part  of  the  local  government  against  Montreal;  and 
moreover  there  was  no  longer  a  house  in  which  the  Parlia- 
ment could  be  held  in  that  town.  For  these  conjoint  rea- 
sons it  was  decided  to  move  the  seat  of  government  again, 
and  it  was  resolved  that  the  Governor  and  the  Parliament 
should  sit  alternately  at  Toronto  in  Tipper  Canada,  and  at 
Quebec  in  Lower  Canada,  remaining  four  years  at  each 
place.  They  went  at  first  to  Toronto  for  two  years  only, 
having  agreed  that  they  should  be  there  on  this  occasion 
only  for  the  remainder  of  the  term  of  the  then  Parliament. 
After  that  they  were  at  Quebec  for  four  years;  then  at  To- 
ronto for  four ;  and  now  again  are  at  Quebec.  But  this 
arrangement  has  been  found  very  inconvenient.  In  the 
first  place  there  is  a  great  national  expenditure  incurred  in 
moving  old  records  and  in  keeping  double  records,  in  mov- 
ing the  library,  and,  as  I  have  been  informed,  even  the  pic- 
tures. The  government  clerks  also  are  called  on  to  move 
as  the  government  moves ;  and  though  an  allowance  is  made 
to  them  from  the  national  purse  to  cover  their  loss,  the  ar- 
rangement has  nevertheless  been  felt  by  them  to  be  a  griev- 
ance, as  may  be  well  understood.  The  accommodation  also 
for  the  ministers  of  the  government  and  for  mem^bers  of 
the  two  Houses  has  been  insufficient.  Hotels,  lodgings, 
and  furnished  houses  could  not  be  provided  to  the  extent 
required,  seeing  that  they  would  be  left  nearly  empty  for 
every  alternate  space  of  four  years.  Indeed,  it  needs  but 
little  argument  to  prove  that  the  plan  adopted  must  have 
been  a  thoroughly  uncomfortable  plan,  and  the  wonder  is 
that  it  should  liave  been  adopted.  Lower  Canada  had  un- 
dertaken to  make  all  her  leading  citizens  wretched,  provid- 
ing Upper  Canada  would  treat  hers  with  equal  severity. 
This  has  now  gone  on  for  some  twelve  years,  and  as  the 
system  was  found  to  be  an  unendurable  nuisance,  it  has 
been  at  last  admitted  that  some  steps  must  be  taken 
toward  selecting  one  capital  for  the  country. 


SEAT  OF  GOVERNMENT  FOR  THE  CANADAS.  73 


I  should  here,  in  justice  to  the  Canadians,  state  a  remark 
made  to  me  on  this  matter  by  one  of  the  present  leading 
politicians  of  the  colony.  I  cannot  think  that  the  migra- 
tory scheme  was  good;  but  he  defended  it,  asserting  that 
it  had  done  very  much  to  amalgamate  the  people  of  the  two 
provinces;  that  it  had  brought  Lower  Canadians  into  Up- 
per Canada,  and  Upper  Canadians  into  Lower  Canada, 
teaching  English  to  those  who  spoke  only  French  before, 
and  making  each  pleasantly  acquainted  with  the  other.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  something — perhaps  much — has  been 
done  in  this  way;  but  valuable  as  the  result  may  have  been, 
I  cannot  think  it  worth  the  cost  of  the  means  employed. 
Tlie  best  answer  to  the  above  argument  consists  in  the  un- 
doubted fact  that  a  migratory  government  would  never 
have  been  established  for  such  a  reason.  It  was  so  estab- 
lished because  Montreal,  the  central  town,  had  given  offense, 
and  because  the  jealousy  of  the  provinces  against  each  other 
would  not  admit  of  the  government  being  placed  entirely  at 
Quebec,  or  entirely  at  Toronto. 

But  it  was  necessary  that  some  step  should  be  taken ; 
and  as  it  was  found  to  be  unlikely  that  any  resolution  should 
be  reached  by  the  joint  provinces  themselves,  it  was  loyally 
and  wisely  determined  to  refer  the  matter  to  the  Queen. 
That  Her  Majesty  has  constitutionally  the  power  to  call  the 
Parliament  of  Canada  at  any  town  of  Canada  which  she 
may  select,  admits,  I  conceive,  of  no  doubt.  It  is,  I  imag- 
ine, within  her  prerogative  to  call  the  Parliament  of  England 
where  she  may  please  within  that  realm,  though  her  lieges 
would  be  somewhat  startled  if  it  were  called  otherwhere  than 
in  London.  It  was  therefore  well  done  to  ask  Her  Majesty 
to  act  as  arbiter  in  the  matter.  But  there  are  not  wanting 
those  in  Canada  who  say  that  in  referring  the  matter  to  the 
Queen  it  was  in  truth  referring  it  to  those  by  whom  very 
many  of  the  Canadians  were  least  willing  to  be  guided  in 
the  matter;  to  the  Governor-General  namely,  and  the  Colo- 
nial Secretary.  Many  indeed  in  Canada  now  declare  that 
the  decision  simply  placed  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  the 
Governor-General. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  I  do  not  think  that  any  unbiased  trav- 
eler will  doubt  that  the  best  possible  selection  has  been 
made,  presuming  always,  as  we  may  presume  in  the  discus- 
sion, that  Montreal  could  not  be  selected.  I  take  for  granted 
that  the  rejection  of  Montreal  was  regarded  as  a  sine  qua 

7 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


non  in  the  decision.  To  me  it  appears  grievous  that  this 
should  have  been  so.  It  is  a  great  thing  for  any  country 
to  have  a  large,  leading,  world-known  city,  and  I  think  that 
the  government  should  combine  with  the  commerce  of  the 
country  in  carrying  out  this  object.  But  commerce  can  do 
a  great  deal  more  for  government  than  government  can  do 
for  commerce.  Government  has  selected  Ottawa  as  the 
capital  of  Canada;  but  commerce  has  already  made  Mon- 
treal the  capital,  and  Montreal  will  be  the  chief  city  of 
Canada,  let  government  do  what  it  may  to  foster  the  other 
town.  The  idea  of  spiting  a  town  because  there  has  been 
a  row  in  it  seems  to  me  to  be  preposterous.  The  row  was 
not  the  work  of  those  who  have  made  Montreal  rich  and 
respectable.  Montreal  is  more  centrical  than  Ottawa — nay, 
it  is  as  nearly  centrical  as  any  town  can  be.  It  is  easier  to 
get  to  Montreal  from  Toronto  than  to  Ottawa;  and  if  from 
Toronto,  then  from  all  that  distant  portion  of  Upper  Can- 
ada back  of  Toronto.  To  all  Lower  Canada  Montreal  is, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  much  easier  of  access  than  Ottawa. 
But  having  said  so  much  in  favor  of  Montreal,  I  will  again 
admit  that,  putting  aside  Montreal,  the  best  possible  selec- 
tion has  been  made. 

When  Ottawa  was  named,  no  time  was  lost  in  setting  to 
work  to  prepare  for  the  new  migration.  In  1859  the  Par- 
liament was  removed  to  Quebec,  with  the  understanding 
that  it  should  remain  there  till  the  new  buildings  should  be 
completed.  These  buildings  were  absolutely  commenced  in 
April,  1860,  and  it  was,  and  I  believe  still  is,  expected  that 
they  will  be  completed  in  1863.  I  am  now  writing  in  the 
winter  of  1861;  and,  as  is  necessary  in  Canadian  winters, 
the  works  are  suspended.  But  unfortunately  they  were  sus- 
pended in  the  early  part  of  October — on  the  first  of  Octo- 
ber— whereas  they  might  have  been  continued,  as  far  as  the 
season  is  concerned,  up  to  the  end  of  November.  We  reached 
Ottawa  on  the  third  of  October,  and  more  than  a  thousand 
men  had  then  been  just  dismissed.  All  the  money  in  hand  had 
been  expended,  and  the  government — so  it  was  said — could 
give  no  more  money  till  Parliament  should  meet  again. 
This  was  most  unfortunate.  In  the  first  place  the  suspen- 
sion was  against  the  contract  as  made  with  the  contractors 
for  the  building;  in  the  next  place  there  was  the  delay; 
and  then,  worst  of  all,  the  question  again  became  agitated 
whether  the  colonial  legislature  were  really  in  earnest  with 


CANADIAN  SCENERY. 


75 


reference  to  Ottawa.  Many  men  of  mark  in  the  colony 
were  still  anxious — I  believe  are  still  anxious — to  put  an 
end  to  the  Ottawa  scheme,  and  think  that  there  still  exists 
for  them  a  chance  of  success.  And  very  many  men  who 
are  not  of  mark  are  thus  united,  and  a  feeling  of  doubt  on 
the  subject  has  been  created.  Two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  thousand  pounds  have  already  been  spent  on  these  build- 
ings, and  I  have  no  doubt  myself  that  they  will  be  duly 
completed  and  duly  used. 

We  went  up  to  the  new  town  by  boat,  taking  the  course 
of  the  River  Ottawa.  We  passed  St.  Ann's,  but  no  one 
at  St.  Ann's  seemed  to  know  anything  of  the  brothers  who 
were  to  rest  there  on  their  weary  oars.  At  Maxwellstown 
I  could  hear  nothing  of  Annie  Laurie  or  of  her  trysting- 
place  on  the  braes ;  and  the  turnpike  man  at  Tara  could 
tell  me  nothing  of  the  site  of  the  hall,  and  had  never  even 
heard  of  the  harp.  When  I  go  down  South,  I  shall  expect 
to  find  that  the  negro  melodies  have  not  yet  reached  "  Old 
Virginie."  This  boat  conveyance  from  Montreal  to  Ottawa 
is  not  all  that  could  be  wished  in  convenience,  for  it  is  allied 
too  closely  with  railway  traveling.  Those  who  use  it  leave 
Montreal  by  a  railway  ;  after  nine  miles,  they  are  changed 
into  a  steamboat.  Then  they  encounter  another  railway, 
and  at  last  reach  Ottawa  in  a  second  steamboat.  But  the 
river  is  seen,  and  a  better  idea  of  the  country  is  obtained 
than  can  be  had  solely  from  the  railway  cars.  The  scenery 
is  by  no  means  grand,  nor  is  it  strikingly  picturesque,  but 
it  is  in  its  way  interesting.  For  a  long  portion  of  the  river 
the  old  primeval  forests  come  down  close  to  the  water's 
edge,  and  in  the  fall  of  the  year  the  brilliant  coloring  is 
very  lovely.  It  should  not  be  imagined,  as  I  think  it  often 
is  imagined,  that  these  forests  are  made  up  of  splendid 
trees,  or  that  splendid  trees  are  even  common.  When  tim- 
ber grows  on  und rained  ground,  and  when  it  is  uncared  for, 
it  does  not  seem  to  approach  nearer  to  its  perfection  than 
wheat  and  grass  do  under  similar  circumstances.  Seen 
from  a  little  distance,  the  color  and  effect  is  good ;  but  the 
trees  themselves  have  shallow  roots,  and  grow  up  tall,  nar- 
row, and  shapeless.  It  necessarily  is  so  with  all  timber  that 
is  not  thinned  in  its  growth.  When  fine  forest  trees  are 
found,  and  are  left  standing  alone  by  any  cultivator  who 
may  have  taste  enough  to  wish  for  such  adornment,  they 
almost  invariably  die.    They  are  robbed  of  the  sickly  shel- 


T6 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ter  by  wliicli  they  have  been  surrounded ;  the  hot  sun  strikes 
the  uncovered  fibers  of  the  roots,  and  the  poor,  solitary  in- 
valid languishes,  and  at  last  dies. 

As  one  ascends  the  river,  which  by  its  breadth  forms 
itself  into  lakes,  one  is  shown  Indian  villages  clustering 
down  upon  the  bank.  Some  years  ago  these  Indians  were 
rich,  for  the  price  of  furs,  in  which  they  dealt,  was  high  ; 
but  furs  have  become  cheaper,  and  the  beavers,  with  which 
they  used  to  trade,  are  almost  valueless.  That  a  change  in 
the  fashion  of  hats  should  have  assisted  to  polish  these  poor 
fellows  off  the  face  of  creation,  must,  one  may  suppose,  be 
very  unintelligible  to  them  ;  but  nevertheless  it  is  probably 
a  subject  of  deep  speculation.  If  the  reading  world  were 
to  take  to  sermons  again  and  eschew  their  novels,  Messrs. 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  and  some  others  would  look  about 
them  and  inquire  into  the  causes  of  such  a  change  with  con- 
siderable acuteness.  They  might  not,  perhaps,  hit  the  truth, 
and  these  Indians  are  much  in  that  predicament.  It  is  said 
that  very  few  pure-blooded  Indians  are  now  to  be  found  in 
their  villages,  but  I  doubt  whether  this  is  not  erroneous. 
The  children  of  the  Indians  are  now  fed  upon  baked  bread 
and  on  cooked  meat,  and  are  brought  up  in  houses.  They 
are  nursed  somewhat  as  the  children  of  the  white  men  are 
nursed ;  and  these  practices  no  doubt  have  done  much  to- 
ward altering  their  appearance.  The  negroes  who  have 
been  bred  in  the  States,  and  whose  fathers  have  been  so 
bred  before  them,  differ  both  in  color  and  form  from  their 
brothers  who  have  been  born  and  nurtured  in  Africa. 

I  said  in  the  last  chapter  that  the  City  of  Ottawa  was  still 
to  be  built ;  but  I  must  explain,  lest  I  should  draw  down 
on  my  head  the  wrath  of  the  Ottawaites,  that  the  place 
already  contains  a  population  of  15,000  inhabitants.  As, 
however,  it  is  being  prepared  for  four  times  that  number — 
for  eight  times  that  number,  let  us  hope — and  as  it  straggles 
over  a  vast  extent  of  ground,  it  gives  one  the  idea  of  a  city 
in  an  active  course  of  preparation.  In  England  we  know 
nothing  about  unbuilt  cities.  With  us  four  or  five  blocks 
of  streets  together  never  assume  that  ugly,  unfledged  ap- 
pearance which  belongs  to  the  half-finished  carcass  of  a 
house,  as  they  do  so  often  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Ottawa  is  preparing  for  itself  broad  streets  and  grand  thor- 
oughfares. The  buildings  already  extend  over  a  length 
considerably  exceeding  two  miles  ;  and  half  a  dozen  hotels 


FALLS  OF  RIDEAU  AND  CIIAUDIERE.  Yt 

have  been  opened,  which,  if  I  were  writing  a  guide-book  in 
a  complimentary  tone,  it  would  be  my  duty  to  describe  as 
first  rate.  But  the  half  dozen  first-rate  hotels,  though  open, 
as  yet  enjoy  but  a  moderate  amount  of  custom.  All  this 
Justifies  me,  I  think,  in  saying  that  the  city  has  as  yet  to  get 
itself  built.  The  manner  in  which  this  is  being  done  justi- 
fies me  also  in  saying  that  the  Ottawaites  are  going  about 
their  task  with  a  worthy  zeal. 

To  me  I  confess  that  the  nature  of  the  situation  has 
great  charms,  regarding  it  as  the  site  for  a  town.  It  is  not 
on  a  plain  ;  and  from  the  form  of  the  rock  overhanging  the 
river,  and  of  the  hill  that  falls  from  thence  down  to  the 
water,  it  has  been  found  impracticable  to  lay  out  the  place 
in  right-angled  parallelograms.  A  right-angled  parallelo- 
gramical  city,  such  as  are  Philadelphia  and  the  new  portion 
of  New  York,  is  from  its  very  nature  odious  to  me.  I 
know  that  much  may  be  said  in  its  favor — that  drainage 
and  gas-pipes  come  easier  to  such  a  shape,  and  that  ground 
can  be  better  economized.  Nevertheless,  I  prefer  a  street 
that  is  forced  to  twist  itself  about.  I  enjoy  the  narrowness 
of  Temple  Bar  and  the  misshapen  curvature  of  Picket  Street. 
The  disreputable  dinginess  of  Hollowell  Street  is  dear  to 
me,  and  I  love  to  thread  my  way  up  the  Olympic  into  Cov- 
ent  Garden.  Fifth  Avenue  in  New  York  is  as  grand  as 
paint  and  glass  can  make  it ;  but  I  would  not  live  in  a  pal- 
ace in  Fifth  Avenue  if  the  corporation  of  the  city  would 
pay  my  baker's  and  butcher's  bills. 

The  town  of  Ottawa  lies  between  two  waterfalls.  The 
upper  one,  or  Rideau  Fall,  is  formed  by  the  confluence  of  a 
small  river  with  the  larger  one  ;  and  the  lower  fall — desig- 
nated as  lower  because  it  is  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  though 
it  is  higher  up  the  Ottawa  River — is  called  the  Chaudiere, 
from  its  resemblance  to  a  boiling  kettle.  This  is  on  the 
Ottawa  River  itself.  The  Rideau  Fall  is  divided  into  two 
branches,  thus  forming  an  island  in  the  middle,  as  is  the 
case  at  Niagara.  It  is  pretty  enough,  and  worth  visiting 
even  Avere  it  farther  from  the  town  than  it  is ;  but  by 
those  who  have  hunted  out  many  cataracts  in  their  travels 
it  will  not  be  considered  very  remarkable.  The  Chaudiere 
Fall  I  did  think  very  remarkable.  It  is  of  trifling  depth, 
being  formed  by  fractures  in  the  rocky  bed  of  the  river ; 
but  the  waters  have  so  cut  the  rock  as  to  create  beautiful 
forms  in  the  rush  which  they  make  in  their  descent.  Stran- 

1* 


78 


NORTH  A:MERICA. 


gers  are  told  to  look  at  these  falls  from  the  suspension 
bridge ;  and  it  is  well  that  they  should  do  so.  But,  in  so 
looking  at  them,  they  obtain  but  a  very  small  part  of  their 
effect.  On  the  Ottawa  side  of  the  bridge  is  a  brewery, 
which  brewery  is  surrounded  by  a  huge  timber-yard.  This 
timber  yard  I  found  to  be  very  muddy,  and  the  passing  and 
repassing  through  it  is  a  work  of  trouble  ;  but  nevertheless 
let  the  traveler  by  all  means  make  his  way  through  the  mud, 
and  scramble  over  the  timber,  and  cross  the  plank  bridges 
which  traverse  the  streams  of  the  saw-mills,  and  thus  take 
himself  to  the  outer  edge  of  the  wood-work  over  the  water. 
If  he  will  then  seat  himself,  about  the  hour  of  sunset,  he 
will  see  the  Chaudiere  Fall  aright. 

But  the  glory  of  Ottawa  will  be — and,  indeed,  already  is 
— the  set  of  public  buildings  which  is  now  being  erected  on 
the  rock  which  guards,  as  it  were,  the  town  from  the  river. 
How  much  of  the  excellence  of  these  buildings  may  be  due 
to  the  taste  of  Sir  Edmund  Head,  the  late  governor,  I  do 
not  know.  That  he  has  greatly  interested  himself  in  the 
subject,  is  well  known ;  and,  as  the  style  of  the  different 
buildings  is  so  much  alike  as  to  make  one  whole,  though  the 
designs  of  different  architects  were  selected  and  these  dif- 
ferent architects  employed,  1  imagine  that  considerable  al- 
terations must  have  been  made  in  the  original  drawings. 
There  are  three  buildings,  forming  three  sides  of  a  quad- 
rangle ;  but  they  are  not  joined,  the  vacant  spaces  at  the 
corner  being  of  considerable  extent.  The  fourth  side  of 
the  quadrangle  opens  upon  one  of  the  principal  streets  of 
the  town.  The  center  building  is  intended  for  the  Houses 
of  Parliament,  and  the  two  side  buildings  for  the  govern- 
ment offices.  Of  the  first  Messrs.  Fuller  and  Jones  are  the 
architects,  and  of  the  latter  Messrs.  Stent  and  Laver.  I 
did  not  have  the  pleasure  of  meeting  any  of  these  gentle- 
men ;  but  I  take  upon  myself  to  say  that,  as  regards  purity 
of  art  and  manliness  of  conception,  their  joint  work  is  en- 
titled to  the  very  highest  praise.  How  far  the  buildings 
may  be  well  arranged  for  the  required  purposes — how  far 
they  may  be  economical  in  construction  or  specially  adapted 
to  the  severe  climate  of  the  country — I  cannot  say ;  but  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  risking  my  reputation  for  judgment 
in  giving  my  warmest  commendation  to  them  as  regards 
beauty  of  outline  and  truthful  nobility  of  detail. 

T  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  them,  for  I  should  interest 


OTTAWA. 


^9 


no  one  in  doing  so,  and  should  certainly  fail  in  my  attempt 
to  make  any  reader  understand  me.  I  know  no  modern 
Gothic  purer  of  its  kind  or  less  sullied  with  fictitious  orna- 
mentation. Our  own  Houses  of  Parliament  are  very  fine, 
but  it  is,  I  believe,  generally  felt  that  the  ornamentation  is 
too  minute  ;  and,  moreover,  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
perpendicular  Gothic  is  capable  of  the  highest  nobility 
which  architecture  can  achieve.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say 
that  these  Canadian  public  buildings  will  reach  that  highest 
nobility.  They  must  be  finished  before  any  final  judgment 
can  be  pronounced  ;  but  I  do  feel  very  certain  that  that 
final  judgment  will  be  greatly  in  their  favor.  The  total 
frontage  of  the  quadrangle,  including  the  side  buildings,  is 
1200  feet;  that  of  the  center  buildings  is  4t5.  As  I  have 
said  before,  £225,000  have  already  been  expended  ;  and  it 
is  estimated  that  the  total  cost,  including  the  arrangement 
and  decoration  of  the  ground  behind  the  building  and  in 
the  quadrangle,  will  be  half  a  million. 

The  buildings  front  upon  what  will,  I  suppose,  be  the 
principal  street  of  Ottawa,  and  they  stand  upon  a  rock 
looking  immediately  down  upon  the  river.  In  this  way 
they  are  blessed  with  a  site  peculiarly  happy.  Indeed,  I 
cannot  at  this  moment  remember  any  so  much  so.  The 
Castle  of  Edinburgh  stands  very  well ;  but  then,  like  many 
other  castles,  it  stands  on  a  summit  by  itself,  and  can  only 
be  approached  by  a  steep  ascent.  These  buildings  at  Ot- 
tawa, though  they  look  down  from  a  grand  eminence  imme- 
diately on  the  river,  are  approached  from  the  town  without 
any  ascent.  The  rock,  though  it  falls  almost  precipitously 
down  to  the  water,  is  covered  with  trees  and  shrubs ;  and 
then  the  river  that  runs  beneath  is  rapid,  bright,  and  pic- 
turesque in  the  irregularity  of  all  its  lines.  The  view  from 
the  back  of  the  library,  up  to  the  Chaudiere  Falls  and  to 
the  saw-mills  by  which  they  are  surrounded,  is  very  lovely. 
So  that  I  will  say  again  that  I  know  no  site  for  such  a  set 
of  buildings  so  happy  as  regards  both  beauty  and  grandeur. 
It  is  intended  that  the  library,  of  which  the  walls  were  only 
ten  feet  above  the  ground  when  I  was  there,  shall  be  an 
octagonal  building,  in  shape  and  outward  character  like  the 
chapter  house  of  a  cathedral.  This  structure  will,  I  pre- 
sume, be  surrounded  by  gravel  walks  and  green  sward.  Of 
the  library  there  is  a  large  model  showing  all  the  details  of 
the  architecture  ;  and  if  that  model  be  ultimately  followed, 


80 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


this  building  alone  will  be  worthy  of  a  visit  from  English 
tourists.  To  me  it  was  very  wonderful  to  find  such  an  edi- 
fice in  the  course  of  erection  on  the  banks  of  a  wild  river 
almost  at  tlie  back  of  Canada.  But  if  ever  I  visit  Canada 
again,  it  will  be  to  see  those  buildings. when  completed. 

And  now,  like  all  friendly  critics,  having  bestowed  my 
modicum  of  praise,  I  must  proceed  to  find  fault.  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  administer  my  sugar-plum  without  adding  to 
it  some  bitter  morsel  by  way  of  antidote.  The  building  to 
the  left  of  the  quadrangle  as  it  is  entered  is  deficient  in 
length,  and  on  that  account  appears  mean  to  the  eye.  The 
two  side  buildings  are  brought  up  close  to  the  street,  so 
that  each  has  a  frontage  immediately  on  the  street.  Such 
being  the  case,  they  should  be  of  equal  length,  or  nearly  so. 
Had  the  center  of  one  fronted  the  center  of  the  other,  a 
difference  of  length  might  have  been  allowed ;  but  in  this 
case  the  side  front  of  the  smaller  one  would  not  have 
reached  the  street.  As  it  is,  the  space  between  the  main 
building  and  the  smaller  wing  is  disproportionably  large, 
and  the  very  distance  at  which  it  stands  will,  I  fear,  give  to  it 
that  appearance  of  meanness  of  which  I  have  spoken.  The 
clerk  of  the  works,  who  explained  to  me  with  much  cour- 
tesy the  plan  of  the  buildings,  stated  that  the  design  of  this 
wing  was  capable  of  elongation,  and  had  been  expressly 
prepared  with  that  object.  If  this  be  so,  I  trust  that  the 
defect  will  be  remedied. 

The  great  trade  of  Canada  is  lumbering ;  and  lumbering 
consists  in  cutting  down  pine-trees  up  in  the  far  distant 
forests,  in  hewing  or  sawing  them  into  shape  for  market, 
and  getting  them  down  the  rivers  to  Quebec,  from  whence 
they  are  exported  to  Europe,  and  chiefly  to  England.  Tim- 
ber in  Canada  is  called  lumber ;  those  engaged  in  the  trade 
are  called  lumberers,  and  the  business  itself  is  called  lum- 
bering. After  a  lapse  of  time  it  must  no  doubt  become 
monotonous  to  those  engaged  in  it,  and  the  name  is  not  en- 
gaging ;  but  there  is  much  about  it  that  is  very  picturesque. 
A  saw-mill  w^orked  by  water  power  is  almost  always  a  pretty 
object ;  and  stacks  of  new-cut  timber  are  pleasant  to  the 
smell,  and  group  themselves  not  amiss  on  the  water's  edge. 
If  I  had  the  time,  and  were  a  year  or  two  younger,  I  should 
love  well  to  go  up  lumbering  into  the  woods.  The  men  for 
this  purpose  are  hired  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  and  are  sent 
up  hundreds  of  miles  away  to  the  pine  forests  in  strong 


LUMBERING. 


81 


gangs.  Everything  is  there  found  for  tliem.  They  make 
log  huts  for  their  shelter,  and  food  of  the  best  and  the 
strongest  is  taken  up  for  their  diet.  But  no  strong  drink 
of  any  kind  is  allowed,  nor  is  any  within  reach  of  the  men. 
There  are  no  publics,  no  shebeen  houses,  no  grog-shops. 
Sobriety  is  an  enforced  virtue  ;  and  so  much  is  this  consid- 
ered by  the  masters,  and  understood  by  the  men,  that  very 
little  contraband  work  is  done  in  the  way  of  taking  up  spir- 
its to  these  settlements.  It  may  be  said  that  the  work  up 
in  the  forests  is  done  with  the  assistance  of  no  stronger 
drink  than  tea;  and  it  is  very  hard  work.  There  cannot 
be  much  work  that  is  harder  ;  and  it  is  done  amid  the 
snows  and  forests  of  a  Canadian  winter.  A  convict  in  Ber- 
muda cannot  get  through  his  daily  eight  hours  of  light  labor 
without  an  allowance  of  rum  ;  but  a  Canadian  lumberer 
can  manage  to  do  his  daily  task  on  tea  without  milk.  These 
men,  however,  are  by  no  means  teetotalers.  When  they 
come  back  to  the  towns  they  break  out,  and  reward  them- 
selves for  their  long-enforced  moderation.  The  wages  I 
found  to  be  very  various,  running  from  thirteen  or  fourteen 
dollars  a  month  to  twenty-eight  or  thirty,  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  work.  The  men  who  cut  down  the  trees  re- 
ceive more  than  those  who  hew  them  when  down,  and  these 
again  more  than  the  under  class  who  make  the  roads  and 
clear  the  ground.  These  money  wages,  however,  are  in  ad- 
dition to  their  diet.  The  operation  requiring  the  most  skill 
is  that  of  marking  the  trees  for  the  axe.  The  largest  only 
are  worth  cutting,  and  form  and  soundness  must  also  be 
considered. 

But  if  I  were  about  to  visit  a  party  of  lumberers  in  the 
forest,  I  should  not  be  disposed  to  pass  a  whole  winter  with 
them.  Even  of  a  very  good  thing  one  may  have  too  much. 
I  would  go  up  in  the  spring,  when  the  rafts  are  being  formed 
in  the  small  tributary  streams,  and  I  would  come  down  upon 
one  of  them,  shooting  the  rapids  of  the  rivers  as  soon  as 
the  first  freshets  had  left  the  way  open.  A  freshet  in  the 
rivers  is  the  rush  of  waters  occasioned  by  melting  snow  and 
ice.  The  first  freshets  take  down  the  winter  waters  of  the 
nearer  lakes  and  rivers.  Then  the  streams  become  for  a 
time  navigable,  and  the  rafts  go  down.  After  that  comes 
the  second  freshet,  occasioned  by  the  melting  of  far-off  snow 
and  ice  up  in  the  great  northern  lakes,  which  are  little  known. 
These  rafts  are  of  immense  construction,  such  as  those  which 


82 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


we  have  seen  on  the  Rhone  and  Rhine,  and  often  contain 
timber  to  the  vahie  of  two,  tliree,  and  four  thousand  pounds. 
At  the  rapids  the  large  rafts  are,  as  it  were,  unyoked,  and 
divided  into  small  portions,  which  go  down  separately.  The 
excitement  and  motion  of  sucli  transit  must,  I  should  say, 
be  very  joyous.  I  was  told  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  desired 
to  go  down  a  rapid  on  a  raft,  but  that  the  men  in  charge 
would  not  undertake  to  say  that  there  was  no  possible  dan- 
ger ;  whereupon  those  who  accompanied  the  prince  re- 
quested his  Royal  Highness  to  forbear.  I  fear  that,  in 
these  careful  days,  crowned  heads  and  their  heirs  must  often 
find  themselves  in  the  position  of  Sancho  at  the  banquet. 
The  sailor  prince,  who  came  after  his  brother,  was  allowed 
to  go  down  a  rapid,  and  got,  as  I  was  told,  rather  a  rough 
bump  as  he  did  so. 

Ottawa  is  a  great  place  for  these  timber  rafts.  Indeed, 
it  may,  I  think,  be  called  the  headquarters  of  timber  for  the 
world.  Nearly  all  the  best  pine-wood  comes  down  the  Ot- 
tawa and  its  tributaries.  The  other  rivers  by  which  timber 
is  brought  down  to  the  St.  Lawrence  are  chiefly  the  St. 
Maurice,  the  Madawaska,  and  the  Saguenay ;  but  the  Ot- 
tawa and  its  tributaries  water  ^75,000  square  miles,  whereas 
the  other  three  rivers,  with  their  tributaries,  water  only 
53,000.  The  timber  from  the  Ottawa  and  St.  Maurice  finds 
its  way  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec,  where,  however, 
it  loses  the  whole  of  its  picturesque  character.  The  Sa- 
guenay and  the  Madawaska  fall  into  the  St.  Lawrence  below 
Quebec. 

From  Ottawa  we  went  by  rail  to  Prescott,  which  is  surely 
one  of  the  most  wretched  little  places  to  be  found  in  any 
country.  Immediately  opposite  to  it,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  is  the  thriving  town  of  Ogdensburg.  But 
Ogdensburg  is  in  the  United  States.  Had  we  been  able  to 
learn  at  Ottawa  any  facts  as  to  the  hours  of  the  river 
steamers  and  railways,  we  might  have  saved  time  and  have 
avoided  Prescott ;  but  this  was  out  of  the  question.  Had 
I  asked  the  exact  hour  at  which  I  might  reach  Calcutta  by 
the  quickest  route,  an  accurate  reply  w^ould  not  have  been 
more  out  of  the  question.  I  was  much  struck,  at  Prescott 
— and,  indeed,  all  through  Canada,  though  more  in  the  up- 
per than  in  the  lower  province — by  the  sturdy  roughness, 
some  would  call  it  insolence,  of  those  of  the  lower  classes 
of  the  people  with  whom  I  was  brought  into  contact.  If 


FREE  AND  EQUAL. 


83 


the  words  "  lower  classes"  give  offense  to  any  reader,  I  beg 
to  apologize — to  apologize,  and  to  assert  that  I  am  one  of 
the  last  of  men  to  apply  such  a  term  in  a  sense  of  reproach 
to  those  who  earn  their  bread  by  the  labor  of  their  hands. 
But  it  is  hard  to  find  terms  which  will  be  understood  ;  and 
that  term,  whether  it  give  offense  or  no,  will  be  understood. 
Of  course  such  a  complaint  as  that  I  now  make  is  very  com- 
mon as  made  against  the  States.  Men  in  the  States,  with 
horned  hands  and  fustian  coats,  are  very  often  most  unne- 
cessarily insolent  in  asserting  their  independence.  What  I 
now  mean  to  say  is  that  precisely  the  same  fault  is  to  be 
found  in  Canada.  I  know  well  what  the  men  mean  when 
they  offend  in  this  manner.  And  when  I  think  on  the  sub- 
ject with  deliberation  at  my  own  desk,  I  can  not  only  excuse, 
but  almost  approve  them.  But  when  one  personally  en- 
counters this  corduroy  braggadocio  ;  when  the  man  to  whose 
services  one  is  entitled  answers  one  with  determined  inso- 
lence ;  when  one  is  bidden  to  follow  "  that  young  lady," 
meaning  the  chambermaid,  or  desired,  with  a  toss  of  the 
head,  to  wait  for  the  "gentleman  who  is  coming,"  meaning 
the  boots,  the  heart  is  sickened,  and  the  English  traveler 
pines  for  the  civility — for  the  servility,  if  my  American 
friends  choose  to  call  it  so — of  a  well-ordered  servant.  But 
the  whole  scene  is  easily  construed,  and  turned  into  Eng- 
lish. A  man  is  asked  by  a  stranger  some  question  about 
his  employment,  and  he  replies  in  a  tone  which  seems  to 
imply  anger,  insolence,  and  a  dishonest  intention  to  evade 
the  service  for  which  he  is  paid.  Or,  if  there  be  no  ques- 
tion of  service  or  payment,  the  man's  manner  will  be  the 
same,  and  the  stranger  feels  that  he  is  slapped  in  the  face 
and  insulted.  The  translation  of  it  is  this  :  The  man  ques- 
tioned, who  is  aware  that  as  regards  coat,  hat,  boots,  and 
outward  cleanliness  he  is  below  him  by  whom  he  is  ques- 
tioned, unconsciously  feels  himself  called  upon  to  assert  his 
political  equality.  It  is  his  shibboleth  that  he  is  politically 
equal  to  the  best,  that  he  is  independent,  and  that  his  labor, 
though  it  earn  him  but  a  dollar  a  day  by  porterage,  places 
him  as  a  citizen  on  an  equal  rank  with  the  most  wealthy 
fellow-man  that  may  employ  or  accost  him.  But,  being  so 
inferior  in  that  coat,  hat,  and  boots  matter,  he  is  forced  to 
assert  his  equality  by  some  effort.  As  he  improves  in  ex- 
ternals, he  will  diminish  the  roughness  of  his  claim.  As 
long  as  the  man  makes  his  claim  with  any  roughness,  so  long 


84 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


does  he  acknowledge  within  himself  some  feeling  of  external 
inferiority.  When  that  has  gone — when  the  American  has 
polislied  himself  up  by  education  and  general  well-being  to 
a  feeling  of  external  equality  with  gentlemen,  he  shows,  I 
think,  no  more  of  that  outward  braggadocio  of  independ- 
ence than  a  Frenchman. 

But  the  blow  at  the  moment  of  the  stroke  is  very  galling. 
I  confess  that  I  have  occasionally  all  but  broken  down 
beneath  it.  But  when  it  is  thought  of  afterward  it  admits 
of  full  excuse.  No  effort  that  a  man  can  make  is  better 
than  a  true  effort  at  independence.  But  this  insolence  is  a 
false  effort,  it  will  be  said.  It  should  rather  be  called  a 
false  accompaniment  to  a  life-long  true  effort.  The  man 
probably  is  not  dishonest,  does  not  desire  to  shirk  any  serv- 
ice which  is  due  from  him,  is  not  even  inclined  to  inso- 
lence. Accept  his  first  declaration  of  equality  for  that 
which  it  is  intended  to  represent,  and  the  man  afterward 
will  be  found  obliging  and  communicative.  If  occasion 
offer  he  will  sit  down  in  the  room  with  you,  and  will  talk 
with  you  on  any  subject  that  he  may  choose;  but  having 
once  ascertained  that  you  show  no  resentment  for  this  asser- 
tion of  equality,  he  will  do  pretty  nearly  all  that  is  asked. 
He  will  at  any  rate  do  as  much  in  that  way  as  an  English- 
man. I  say  thus  much  on  this  subject  now  especially,  be- 
cause I  was  quite  as  much  struck  by  the  feeling  in  Canada 
as  I  was  within  the  States. 

From  Prescott  we  went  on  by  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway 
to  Toronto,  and  stayed  there  for  a  few  days.  Toronto  is 
the  capital  of  the  province  of  Upper  Canada,  and  I  pre- 
sume will  in  some  degree  remain  so,  in  spite  of  Ottawa  and 
its  pretensions.  That  is,  the  law  courts  will  still  be  held 
there.  I  do  not  know  that  it  will  enjoy  any  other  suprem- 
acy unless  it  be  that  of  trade  and  population.  Some  few 
years  ago  Toronto  was  advancing  with  rapid  strides,  and 
was  bidding  fair  to  rival  Quebec,  or  even  perhaps  Montreal. 
Hamilton  also,  another  town  of  Upper  Canada,  was  going 
ahead  in  the  true  American  style;  but  then  reverses  came 
in  trade,  and  the  towns  were  checked  for  awhile.  Toronto, 
with  a  neighboring  suburb  which  is  a  part  of  it,  as  South- 
wark  is  of  London,  contains  now  over  50,000  inhabitants. 
The  streets  are  all  parallelogramical,  and  there  is  not  a  sin- 
gle curvature  to  rest  the  eye.    It  is  built  down  close  upon 


TORONTO. 


85 


Lake  Ontario ;  and  as  it  is  also  on  the  Grand  Trunk  Rail- 
way, it  has  all  the  aid  which  facility  of  traffic  can  give  it. 

The  two  sights  of  Toronto  are  the  Osgoode  Hall  and 
the  University.  The  Osgoode  Hall  is  to  Upper  Canada 
what  the  Four  Courts  are  to  Ireland.  The  law  courts  are 
all  held  there.  Exteriorly,  little  can  be  said  for  Osgoode 
Hall,  whereas  the  exterior  of  the  Four  Courts  in  Dublin  is 
very  fine;  but  as  an  interior,  the  temple  of  Themis  at  To- 
ronto beats  hollow  that  which  the  goddess  owns  in  Dublin. 
In  Dublin  the  courts  themselves  are  shabby,  and  the  space 
under  the  dome  is  not  so  fine  as  the  exterior  seems  to  prom- 
ise that  it  should  be.  In  Toronto  the  courts  themselves  are, 
I  think,  the  most  commodious  that  I  ever  saw,  and  the  pas- 
sages, vestibules,  and  hall  are  very  handsome.  In  Upper 
Canada  the  common-law  judges  and  those  in  chancery  are 
divided  as  they  are  in  England ;  but  it  is,  as  I  was  told, 
the  opinion  of  Canadian  lawyers  that  the  work  may  be 
thrown  together.  Appeal  is  allowed  in  criminal  cases;  but 
as  far  as  I  could  learn  such  power  of  appeal  is  held  to  be 
both  troublesome  and  useless.  In  Lower  Canada  the  old 
French  laws  are  still  administered. 

But  the  University  is  the  glory  of  Toronto.  This  is  a 
Gothic  building,  and  will  take  rank  after,  but  next  to,  the 
buildings  at  Ottawa.  It  will  be  the  second  piece  of  noble 
architecture  in  Canada,  and  as  far  as  I  know  on  the  Amer- 
ican continent.  It  is,  I  believe,  intended  to  be  purely  Nor- 
man, though  I  doubt  whether  the  received  types  of  Norman 
architecture  have  not  been  departed  from  in  many  of  the 
windows.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  college  is  a  manly,  noble 
structure,  free  from  false  decoration,  and  infinitely  creditable 
to  those  who  projected  it.  I  was  informed  by  the  head  of 
the  college  that  it  has  been  open  only  two  years ;  and  here 
also  I  fancy  that  the  colony  has  been  much  indebted  to  the 
taste  of  the  late  Governor,  Sir  Edmund  Head. 

Toronto  as  a  city  is  not  generally  attractive  to  a  traveler. 
The  country  around  it  is  flat ;  and,  though  it  stands  on  a 
lake,  that  lake  has  no  attributes  of  beauty.  Large  inland 
seas,  such  as  are  these  great  Northern  lakes  of  America, 
never  have  such  attributes.  Picturesque  mountains  rise 
from  narrow  valleys,  such  as  form  the  beds  of  lakes  in 
Switzerland,  Scotland,  and  Northern  Italy;  but  from  such 
broad  waters  as  those  of  Lake  Ontario,  Lake  Erie,  and 

8 


86 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Lake  Michigan,  the  shores  shelve  very  gradually,  and  have 
none  of  the  materials  of  lovely  scenery. 

The  streets  in  Toronto  are  framed  with  wood,  or  rather 
planked,  as  are  those  of  Montreal  and  Quebec;  but  they 
are  kept  in  better  order.  I  should  say  that  the  planks  are 
first  used  at  Toronto,  then  sent  down  by  the  lake  to  Mon- 
treal, and  when  all  but  rotted  out  there,  are  again  floated 
off  by  the  St.  Lawrence  to  be  used  in  the  thoroughfares  of 
the  old  French  capital.  But  if  the  streets  of  Toronto  are 
better  than  those  of  the  other  towns,  the  roads  around  it 
are  worse.  I  had  the  honor  of  meeting  two  distinguished 
members  of  the  Provincial  Parliament  at  dinner  some  few 
miles  out  of  town,  and,  returning  back  a  short  while  after 
they  had  left  our  host's  house,  was  glad  to  be  of  use  in 
picking  them  up  from  a  ditch  into  which  their  carriage  had 
been  upset.  To  me  it  appeared  all  but  miraculous  that  any 
carriage  should  make  its  way  over  that  road  without  such 
misadventure.  I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  hope  that  the 
discomfiture  of  these  worthy  legislators  may  lead  to  some 
improvement  in  the  thoroughfare. 

I  had  on  a  previous  occasion  gone  down  the  St.  Law- 
rence, through  the  Thousand  Isles  and  over  the  Rapids,  in 
one  of  those  large  summer  steamboats  which  ply  upon  the 
lake  and  river.  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  much  struck  by 
the  scenery,  and  therefore  did  not  encroach  upon  my  time 
by  making  the  journey  again.  Such  an  opinion  will  be 
regarded  as  heresy  by  many  who  think  much  of  the  Thou- 
sand Islands.  I  do  not  believe  that  they  would  be  expressly 
noted  by  any  traveler  who  was  not  expressly  bidden  to  ad- 
mire them. 

From  Toronto  we  went  across  to  Niagara,  re-entering 
the  States  at  Lewiston,  in  New  York. 


THE  CANADAS  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN.  8t 


CHAPTER  YL 

THE  CONNECTION  OF  THE  CANADAS  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

"When  the  American  war  began  troops  were  sent  out  to 
Canada,  and  when  I  was  in  the  provinces  more  troops  were 
then  expected.  The  matter  was  much  talked  of,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  in  Canada,  and  it  had  been  discussed  in  Eng- 
land before  I  left.  I  had  seen  much  said  about  it  in  the 
English  papers  since,  and  it  also  had  become  the  subject  of 
very  hot  question  among  the  politicians  of  the  Northern 
States.  The  measure  had  at  that  time  given  more  um- 
brage to  the  North  than  anything  else  done  or  said  by 
England  from  the  beginning  of  the  war  up  to  that  time, 
except  the  declaration  made  by  Lord  John  Russell  in  the 
House  of  Commons  as  to  the  neutrality  to  be  preserved  by 
England  between  the  two  belligerents.  The  argument  used 
by  the  Northern  States  was  this :  If  France  collects  men 
and  material  of  war  in  the  neighborhood  of  England,  Eng- 
land considers  herself  injured,  calls  for  an  explanation,  and 
talks  of  invasion.  Therefore,  as  England  is  now  collecting 
men  and  material  of  war  in  our  neighborhood,  we  will  con- 
sider ourselves  injured.  It  does  not  suit  us  to  ask  for  an 
explanation,  because  it  is  not  our  habit  to  interfere  with 
other  nations.  We  will  not  pretend  to  say  that  we  think 
we  are  to  be  invaded.  But  as  we  clearly  are  injured,  we 
will  express  our  anger  at  that  injury,  and  when  the  oppor- 
tunity shall  come  will  take  advantage  of  having  that  new 
grievance. 

As  we  all  know,  a  very  large  increase  of  force  was  sent 
when  we  were  still  in  doubt  as  to  the  termination  of  the 
Trent  affair,  and  imagined  that  war  was  imminent.  But 
the  sending  of  that  large  force  did  not  anger  the  Americans 
as  the  first  dispatch  of  troops  to  Canada  had  angered  them. 
Things  had  so  turned  out  that  measures  of  military  precau- 
tion were  acknowledged  by  them  to  be  necessary.  I  can- 
not, however,  but  think  that  Mr.  Seward  might  have  spared 
that  offer  to  send  British  troops  across  Maine,  and  so  also 


BS  NORTH  AMERICA. 

have  all  his  countrymen  thought  by  whom  I  have  heard  the 
matter  discussed. 

As  to  any  attempt  at  invasion  of  Canada  by  the  Ameri- 
cans, or  idea  of  punishing  the  alleged  injuries  sufiered  by 
the  States  from  Great  Britain  by  the  annexation  of  those 
provinces,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  sane-minded  citizens 
of  the  States  believe  in  the  possibility  of  such  retaliation. 
Some  years  since  the  Americans  thought  that  Canada  might 
shine  in  the  Union  firmament  as  a  new  star ;  but  that  delu- 
sion is,  I  think,  over.  Such  annexation,  if  ever  made,  must 
have  been  made  not  only  against  the  arms  of  England,  but 
must  also  have  been  made  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of 
the  people  so  annexed.  It  was  then  believed  that  the  Ca- 
nadians were  not  averse  to  such  a  change,  and  there  may 
possibly  have  then  been  among  them  the  remnant  of  such 
a  wish.  There  is  certainly  no  such  desire  now,  not  even  a 
remnant  of  such  a  desire  ;  and  the  truth  on  this  matter  is, 
I  think,  generally  acknowledged.  The  feeling  in  Canada 
is  one  of  strong  aversion  to  the  United  States  government 
and  of  predilection  for  self-government  under  the  English 
Crown.  A  faineant  governor  and  the  prestige  of  British 
power  is  now  the  political  aspiration  of  the  Canadians  in 
general-;  and  I  think  that  this  is  understood  in  the  States. 
Moreover,  the  States  have  a  job  of  work  on  hand  which,  as 
they  themselves  are  well  aware,  is  taxing  all  their  energies. 
Such  being  the  case,  I  do  not  think  that  England  needs  to 
fear  any  invasion  of  Canada  authorized  by  the  States  gov- 
ernment. 

This  feeling  of  a  grievance  on  the  part  of  the  States  was 
a  manifest  absurdity.  The  new  reinforcement  of  the  gar- 
risons in  Canada  did  not,  when  I  was  in  Canada,  amount, 
as  I  believe,  to  more  than  2000  men.  But  had  it  amounted 
to  20,000,  the  States  would  have  had  no  just  ground  for 
complaint.  Of  all  nationalities  that  in  modern  days  have 
risen  to  power,  they,  above  all  others,  have  shown  that  they 
would  do  what  they  liked  with  their  own,  indifferent  to  for- 
eign counsels  and  deaf  to  foreign  remonstrance.  "  Do  you 
go  your  way,  and  let  us  go  ours.  We  will  trouble  you  with 
no  question,  nor  do  you  trouble  us."  Such  has  been  their 
national  policy,  and  it  has  obtained  for  them  great  respect. 
They  have  resisted  the  temptation  of  putting  their  fingers 
into  the  caldron  of  foreign  policy ;  and  foreign  politicians, 
acknowledging  their  reserve  in  this  respect,  have  not  been 


I 


BRITISH  TROOPS  IN  CANADA.  89 

offended  at  the  bristles  with  whicli  their  Noli  me  tangere 
has  been  proclaimed.  Their  intelligence  has  been  appre- 
ciated, and  their  conduct  has  been  respected.  But  if  this 
has  been  their  line  of  policy,  they  must  be  entirely  out  of 
court  in  raising  any  question  as  to  the  position  of  British 
troops  on  British  soil. 

"It  shows  us  that  you  doubt  us,"  an  American  says,  with 
an  air  of  injured  honor — or  did  say,  before  that  Trent  affair. 
"And  it  is  done  to  express  sympathy  with  the  South.  The 
Southerners  understand  it,  and  we  understand  it  also.  We 
know  where  your  hearts  are — nay,  your  very  souls.  They 
are  among  the  slave-begotten  cotton  bales  of  the  rebel 
South."  Then  comes  the  whole  of  the  long  argument  in 
which  it  seems  so  easy  to  an  Englishman  to  prove  that 
England,  in  the  whole  of  this  sad  matter,  has  been  true  and 
loyal  to  her  friend.  She  could  not  interfere  when  the  hus- 
*band  and  wife  would  quarrel.  She  could  only  grieve,  and 
wish  that  things  might  come  right  and  smooth  for  both 
parties.  But  the  argument,  though  so  easy,  is  never 
effectual. 

It  seems  to  me  foolish  in  an  American  to  quarrel  with 
England  for  sending  soldiers  to  Canada ;  but  I  cannot  say 
that  I  thought  it  was  well  done  to  send  them  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war.  The  English  government  did  not,  I  pre- 
sume, take  this  step  with  reference  to  any  possible  invasion 
of  Canada  by  the  government  of  the  States.  We  are  for- 
tifying Portsmouth,  and  Portland,  and  Plymouth,  because 
we  would  fain  be  safe  against  the  French  army  acting  under 
a  French  Emperor.  But  we  sent  2000  troops  to  Canada, 
if  I  understand  the  matter  rightly,  to  guard  our  provinces 
against  the  filibustering  energies  of  a  mass  of  unemployed 
American  soldiers,  when  those  soldiers  should  come  to  be 
disbanded.  When  this  war  shall  be  over — a  war  during 
which  not  much,  if  any,  under  a  million  of  American  citi- 
zens will  have  been  under  arms — it  will  not  be  easy  for  all 
who  survive  to  return  to  their  old  homes  and  old  occupa- 
tions. Nor  does  a  disbanded  soldier  always  make  a  good 
husbandman,  notwithstanding  the  great  examples  of  Cin- 
cinnatus  and  Bird-o'-freedom  Sawin.  It  may  be  that  a 
considerable  amount  of  filibustering  energy  will  be  afloat, 
and  that  the  then  government  of  those  who  neighbor  us  in 
Canada  will  have  other  matters  in  hand  more  important  to 
them  than  the  controlling  of  these  unruly  spirits.    That,  as 

8* 


90 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  take  it,  was  the  evil  against  wliicli  we  of  Great  Britain 
and  of  Canada  desired  to  guard  ourselves. 

But  I  doubt  whether  2000  or  10,000  British  soldiers 
would  be  any  effective  guard  against  such  inroads,  and  I 
doubt  more  strongly  whether  any  such  external  guarding 
will  be  necessary.  If  the  Canadians  were  prepared  to  fra- 
ternize with  filibusters  from  the  States,  neither  three  nor  ten 
thousand  soldiers  would  avail  against  such  a  feeling  over  a 
frontier  stretching  from  the  State  of  Maine  to  the  shores 
of  Lake  Huron  and  Lake  Erie.  If  such  a  feeling  did  ex- 
ist— if  the  Canadians  wished  the  change — in  God's  name 
let  them  go.  It  is  for  their  sakes,  and  not  for  our  own,  that 
we  would  have  them  bound  to  us.  But  the  Canadians  are 
averse  to  such  a  change  with  a  degree  of  feeling  that 
amounts  to  national  intensity.  Their  sympathies  are  with 
the  Southern  States,  not  because  they  care  for  cotton,  not 
because  they  are  anti-abolitionists,  not  because  they  admire 
the  hearty  pluck  of  those  who  are  endeavoring  to  work  out 
for  themselves  a  new  revolution.  They  sympathize  with  the 
South  from  strong  dislike  to  the  aggression,  the  braggado- 
cio, and  the  insolence  they  have  felt  upon  their  own  bor- 
ders. They  dislii^e  Mr.  Seward's  weak  and  vulgar  joke  with 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  They  dislike  Mr.  Everett's  flat- 
tering hints  to  his  countrymen  as  to  the  one  nation  that  is 
to  occupy  the  whole  continent.  They  dislike  the  Monroe 
doctrine.  They  wonder  at  the  meekness  with  whicli  England 
has  endured  the  vauntings  of  the  Northern  States,  and  are 
endued  with  no  such  meekness  of  their  own.  They  would, 
I  believe,  be  well  prepared  to  meet  and  give  an  account  of 
any  filibusters  who  might  visit  them  ;  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  it  is  wisely  done  on  our  part  to  show  any  intention  of 
taking  the  work  out  of  their  hands. 

But  I  am  led  to  this  opinion  in  no  degree  by  a  feeling 
tliat  Great  Britain  ^ought  to  grudge  the  cost  of  the  soldiers. 
If  Canada  will  be  safer  with  them,  in  Heaven's  name  let 
her  have  them.  It  has  been  argued  in  many  places,  not 
only  with  regard  to  Canada,  but  as  to  all  our  self-governed 
colonies,  that  military  service  should  not  be  given  at  British 
expense  and  with  British  men  to  any  colony  which  has  its 
own  representative  government  and  which  levies  its  own 
taxes.  "While*  Great  Britain  absolutely  held  the  reins  of 
government,  and  did  as  it  pleased  with  the  affairs  of  its 
dependencies,"  such  politicians  say,  "  it  was  just  and  right 


ENGLAND  AND  HER  COLONIES. 


91 


that  she  should  pay  the  bill.  As  long  as  her  government 
of  a  colony  was  paternal,  so  long  was  it  right  that  the 
mother  country  should  put  herself  in  the  place  of  a  father, 
and  enjoy  a  father's  undoubted  prerogative  of  putting  his 
hand  into  his  breeches  pocket  to  provide  for  all  the  wants 
of  his  child.  But  when  the  adult  son  set  up  for  himself  in 
business — having  received  education  from  the  parent,  and 
having  had  his  apprentice  fees  duly  paid — then  that  son 
should  settle  his  own  bills,  and  look  no  longer  to  the  pater- 
nal pocket.*'  Such  is  the  law  of  the  world  all  over,  from 
little  birds,  whose  young  fly  away  when  fledged,  upward  to 
men  and  nations.  Let  the  father  work  for  the  child  while 
he  is  a  child;  but  when  the  child  has  become  a  man,  let  him 
lean  no  longer  on  his  father's  staff. 

The  argument  is,  I  think,  very  good  ;  but  it  proves  not 
that  we  are  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  assisting  our  col- 
onies with  payments  made  out  of  British  taxes,  but  that  we 
are  still  bound  to  give  such  assistance,  and  that  we  shall 
continue  to  be  so  bound  as  long  as  we  allow  these  colonies 
to  adhere  to  us  or  as  they  allow  us  to  adhere  to  them.  In 
fact,  the  young  bird  is  not  yet  fully  fledged.  That  illus- 
tration of  the  father  and  the  child  is  a  just  one,  but  in  order 
to  make  it  just  it  should  be  followed  throughout.  When 
the  son  is  in  fact  established  on  his  own  bottom,  then  the 
father  expects  that  he  will  live  without  assistance.  But 
when  the  son  does  so  live,  he  is  freed  from  all  paternal  con- 
trol. The  father,  while  he  expects  to  be  obeyed,  continues 
to  fill  the  paternal  office  of  paymaster — of  paymaster,  at 
any  rate,  to  some  extent.  And  so,  I  think,  it  must  be  with 
our  colonies.  The  Canadas  at  present  are  not  independent, 
and  have  not  political  power  of  their  own  apart  from  the 
political  power  of  Great  Britain.  England  has  declared 
herself  neutral  as  regards  the  Northern  and  Southern  States, 
and  by  that  neutrality  the  Canadas  are  bound  ;  and  yet  the 
Canadas  were  not  consulted  in  the  matter.  Should  Eng- 
land go  to  war  with  France,  Canada  must  close  her  ports 
against  French  vessels.  If  England  chooses  to  send  her 
troops  to  Canadian  barracks,  Canada  cannot  refuse  to  ac- 
cept them.  If  England  should  send  to  Canada  an  unpop- 
ular governor,  Canada  has  no  power  to  reject  his  services. 
As  long  as  Canada  is  a  colony  so  called,  she  cannot  be  in- 
dependent, and  should  not  be  expected  to  walk  alone.  It 
is  exactly  the  same  with  the  colonies  of  Australia,  with  New 


92 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Zealand,  with  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  with  Jamaica. 
While  England  enjoys  the  prestige  of  her  colonies,  while 
she  boasts  that  such  large  and  now  populous  territories  are 
her  dependencies,  she  must  and  should  be  content  to  pay 
some  portion  of  the  bill.  Surely  it  is  absurd  on  our  part 
to  quarrel  with  Caifre  warfare,  with  New  Zealand  fighting, 
and  the  rest  of  it.  Such  complaints  remind  one  of  an  an- 
cient pa^er  familias  who  insists  on  having  his  children  and 
his  grandchildren  under  the  old  paternal  roof,  and  then 
grumbles  because  the  butcher's  bill  is  high.  Those  who  will 
keep  large  households  and  bountiful  tables  should  not  be 
afraid  of  facing  the  butcher's  bill  or  unhappy  at  the  tonnage 
of  the  coal.  It  is  a  grand  thing,  that  power  of  keeping  a 
large  table ;  but  it  ceases  to  be  grand  when  the  items  heaped 
upon  it  cause  inward  groans  and  outward  moodiness. 

Why  should  the  colonies  remain  true  to  us  as  children 
are  true  to  their  parents,  if  we  grudge  them  the  assistance 
which  is  due  to  a  child  ?  They  raise  their  own  taxes,  it  is 
said,  and,  administer  them.  True ;  and  it  is  well  that  the 
growing  son  should  do  something  for  himself.  While  the 
father  does  all  for  him,  the  son's  labor  belongs  to  the  father. 
Then  comes  a  middle  state  in  which  the  son  does  much  for 
himself,  but  not  all.  In  that  middle  state  now  stand  our 
prosperous  colonies.  Then  comes  the  time  when  the  son 
shall  stand  alone  by  his  own  strength;  and  to  that  period 
of  manly,  self-respected  strength  let  us  all  hope  that  those 
colonies  are  advancing.  It  is  very  hard  for  a  mother  coun- 
try to  know  when  such  a  time  has  come ;  and  hard  also  for 
the  child-colony  to  recognize  justly  the  period  of  its  own 
maturity.  Whether  or  no  such  severance  may  ever  take 
place  without  a  quarrel,  without  weakness  on  one  side  and 
pride  on  the  other,  is  a  problem  in  the  world's  history  yet 
to  be  solved.  The  most  successful  child  that  ever  yet  has 
gone  off  from  a  successful  parent,  and  taken  its  own  path 
into  the  world,  is  without  doubt  the  nation  of  the  United 
States.  Their  present  troubles  are  the  result  and  the  proofs 
of  their  success.  The  people  that  were  too  great  to  be 
dependent  on  any  nation  have  now  spread  till  they  are  them- 
selves too  great  for  a  single  nationality.  No  one  now 
thinks  that  that  daughter  should  have  remained  longer  sub- 
ject to  her  mother.  But  the  severance  was  not  made  in 
amity,  and  the  shrill  notes  of  the  old  family  quarrel  are 
still  sometimes  heard  across  the  waters. 


FEDERAL  GOVERNMENT. 


93 


From  all  this  the  question  arises  whether  that  problem 
may  ever  be  solved  with  reference  to  the  Canadas.  That 
it  will  never  be  their  destiny  to  join  themselves  to  the  States 
of  the  Union,  I  feel  fully  convinced.  In  the  first  place  it 
is  becoming  evident  from  the  present  circumstances  of  the 
Union,  if  it  had  never  been  made  evident  by  history  before, 
that  different  people  with  different  habits,  living  at  long 
distances  from  each  other,  cannot  well  be  brought  together 
on  equal  terms  under  one  government.  That  noble  ambi- 
tion of  the  Americans  that  all  the  continent  north  of  the 
isthmus  should  be  united  under  one  flag,  has  already  been 
thrown  from  its  saddle.  The  J^orth  and  South  are  virtu- 
ally separated,  and  the  day  will  come  in  which  the  West 
also  will  secede.  As  population  increases  and  trades  arise 
peculiar  to  those  different  climates,  the  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple will  differ,  and  a  new  secession  will  take  place  beneficial 
alike  to  both  parties.  If  this  be  so,  if  even  there  be  any 
tendency  this  way,  it  affords  the  strongest  argument  against 
the  probability  of  any  future  annexation  of  the  Canadas. 
And  then,  in  the  second  place,  the  feeling  of  Canada  is  not 
American,  but  British.  If  ever  she  be  separated  from 
Great  Britain,  she  will  be  separated  as  the  States  were  sep- 
arated. She  will  desire  to  stand  alone,  and  to  enter  her-x 
self  as  one  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

She  will  desire  to  stand  alone;  alone,  that  is  without 
dependence  either  on  England  or  on  the  States.  But  she 
is  so  circumstanced  geographically  that  she  can  never  stand 
alone  without  amalgamation  with  our  other  North  Ameri- 
can provinces.  She  has  an  outlet  to  the  sea  at  the  Gulf  of 
St.  Lawrence,  but  it  is  only  a  summer  outlet.  Her  winter 
outlet  is  by  railway  through  the  States,  and  no  other  winter 
outlet  is  possible  for  her  except  through  the  sister  prov- 
inces. Before  Canada  can  be  nationally  great,  the  line  of 
railway  which  now  runs  for  some  hundred  miles  below 
Quebec  to  Riviere  du  Loup  must  be  continued  on  through 
New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia  to  the  port  of  Halifax. 

When  I  was  in  Canada  I  heard  the  question  discussed  of 
a  federal  government  between  the  provinces  of  the  two 
Canadas,  New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia.  To  these 
were  added,  or  not  added,  according  to  the  opinion  of 
those  who  spoke,  the  smaller  outlying  colonies  of  Newfound- 
land and  Prince  Edward's  Island.  If  a  scheme  for  such  a 
government  were  projected  in  Downing  Street,  all  would 


94 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


no  doubt  be  included,  and  a  clean  sweep  would  be  made 
without  difficulty.  But  the  project  as  made  in  the  colonies 
appears  in  different  guises,  as  it  comes  either  from  Canada 
or  from  one  of  the  other  provinces.  The  Canadian  idea 
would  be  that  the  two  Canadas  should  form  two  States  of 
such  a  confederation,  and  the  other  provinces  a  third  State. 
But  this  slight  participation  in  power  would  hardly  suit  the 
views  of  New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia.  In  speaking 
of  such  a  federal  government  as  this,  I  shall  of  course  be 
understood  as  meaning  a  confederation  acting  in  connection 
with  a  British  governor,  and  dependent  upon  Great  Britain 
as  far  as  the  different  colonies  are  now  dependent. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  such  a  confederation  might  be 
formed  with  great  advantage  to  all  the  colonies  and  to 
Great  Britain.  At  present  the  Canadas  are  in  effect  al- 
most more  distant  from  Nova  Scotia  and  New  Brunswick 
than  they  are  from  England.  The  Intercourse  between 
them  is  very  slight — so  slight  that  it  may  almost  be  said 
that  there  is  no  intercourse.  A  few  men  of  science  or  of 
political  importance  may  from  time  to  time  make  their  way 
from  one  colony  into  the  other,  but  even  this  is  not  com- 
mon. Beyond  that  they  seldom  see  each  other.  Though 
New  Brunswick  borders  both  with  Lower  Canada  and  with 
Nova  Scotia,  thus  making  one  whole  of  the  three  colonies, 
there  is  neither  railroad  nor  stage  conveyance  running  from 
one  to  the  other.  And  yet  their  interests  should  be  simi- 
lar. From  geographical  position  their  modes  of  life  must 
be  alike,  and  a  close  conjunction  between  them  is  essentially 
necessary  to  give  British  North  America  any  pohtical  im- 
portance in  the  world.  There  can  be  no  such  conjunction, 
no  amalgamation  of  interests,  until  a  railway  shall  have 
been  made  joining  the  Canada  Grand  Trunk  Line  with  the 
two  outlying  colonies.  Upper  Canada  can  feed  all  Eng- 
land with  wheat,  and  could  do  so  without  any  aid  of  rail- 
way through  the  States,  if  a  railway  were  made  from  Que- 
bec to  Halifax.  But  then  comes  the  question  of  the  cost. 
The  Canada  Grand  Trunk  is  at  the  present  moment  at  the 
lowest  ebb  of  commercial  misfortune,  and  with  such  a  fact 
patent  to  the  world,  what  company  will  come  forward  with 
funds  for  making  four  or  five  hundred  miles  of  railway, 
through  a  district  of  which  one-half  is  not  yet  prepared  for 
population?  It  would  be,  I  imagine,  out  of  the  question 
that  such  a  speculation  should  for  many  years  give  any  fair 


WHY  DOES  GREAT  BRITAIN  KEEP  HER  COLONIES?  95 


commercial  interest  on  the  money  to  be  expended.  But 
nevertheless  to  the  colonies — that  is,  to  the  enormous  re- 
gions of  British  North  America— such  a  railroad  would  be 
invaluable.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  for  the  Home 
Government  and  the  colonies  between  them  to  see  how 
such  a  measure  may  be  carried  out.  As  a  national  expend- 
iture, to  be  defrayed  in  the  course  of  years  by  the  terri- 
tories interested,  the  sum  of  money  required  would  be  very 
small. 

But  how  would  this  affect  England  ?  And  how  would 
England  be  affected  by  a  union  of  the  British  North  Amer- 
ican colonies  under  one  federal  government  ?  Before  this 
question  can  be  answered,  he  who  prepares  to  answer  it 
must  consider  what  interest  England  has  in  her  colonies, 
and  for  what  purpose  she  holds  them.  Does  she  hold  them 
for  profit,  or  for  glory,  or  for  power;  or  does  she  hold  them 
in  order  that  she  may  carry  out  the  duty  which  has  devolved 
upon  her  of  extending  civilization,  freedom,  and  well-being 
through  the  new  uprising  nations  of  the  world  ?  Does  she 
hold  them,  in  fact,  for  her  own  benefit,  or  does  she  hold 
them  for  theirs  ?  I  know  nothing  of  the  ethics  of  the 
Colonial  Office,  and  not  much  perhaps  of  those  of  the 
House  of  Commons  ;  but  looking  at  what  Great  Britain 
has  hitherto  done  in  the  way  of  colonization,  I  cannot  but 
think  that  the  national  ambition  looks  to  the  welfare  of  the 
colonists,  and  not  to  home  aggrandizement.  That  the  two 
may  run  together  is  most  probable.  Indeed,  there  can  be 
no  glory  to  a  people  so  great  or  so  readily  recognized  by 
mankind  at  large  as  that  of  spreading  civilization  from 
east  to  west  and  from  north  to  south.  But  the  one  object 
should  be  the  prosperity  of  the  colonists,  and  not  profit, 
nor  glory,  nor  even  power,  to  the  parent  country. 

There  is  no  virtue  of  which  more  has  been  said  and  sung 
than  patriotism,  and  none  which,  when  pure  and  true,  has 
led  to  finer  results.  DuJce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori. 
To  live  for  one's  country  also  is  a  very  beautiful  and  proper 
thing.  But  if  we  examine  closely  much  patriotism,  that  is 
so  called,  we  shall  find  it  going  hand  in  hand  with  a  good 
deal  that  is  selfish,  and  with  not  a  little  that  is  devilish. 
It  was  some  fine  fury  of  patriotic  feeling  which  enabled  the 
national  poet  to  put  into  the  mouth  of  every  Englishman 
that  horrible  prayer  with  regard  to  our  enemies  which  we 
sing  when  we  wish  to  do  honor  to  our  sovereign.    It  did 


96 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


not  seem  to  him  that  it  might  be  well  to  pray  that  their 
hearts  should  be  softened,  and  our  own  hearts  softened  also. 
Jfational  success  was  all  that  a  patriotic  poet  could  desire, 
and  therefore  in  our  national  hymn  have  we  gone  on  implor- 
ing the  Lord  to  arise  and  scatter  our  enemies;  to  confound 
their  politics,  whether  they  be  good  or  ill ;  and  to  expose 
their  knavish  tricks — such  knavish  tricks  being  taken  for 
granted.  And  then,  with  a  steady  confidence,  we  used  to 
declare  how  certain  we  were  that  we  should  achieve  all  that 
was  desirable,  not  exactly  by  trusting  to  our  prayer  to 
heaven,  but  by  relying  almost  exclusively  on  George  the 
Third  or  George  the  Fourth.  Now  I  have  always  thought 
that  that  was  rather  a  poor  patriotism.  Luckily  for  us,  our 
national  conduct  has  not  squared  itself  with  our  national 
anthem.  Any  patriotism  must  be  poor  which  desires  glory, 
or  even  profit,  for  a  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  even 
though  the  few  be  brothers  and  the  many  aliens.  As  a  rule, 
patriotism  is  a  virtue  only  because  man's  aptitude  for  good 
is  so  finite  that  he  cannot  see  and  comprehend  a  wider 
humanity.  He  can  hardly  bring  himself  to  understand  that 
salvation  should  be  extended  to  Jew  and  Gentile  alike.  The 
word  philanthropy  has  become  odious,  and  I  would  fain  not 
use  it;  but  the  thing  itself  is  as  much  higher  than  patriot- 
ism as  heaven  is  above  the  earth. 

A  wish  that  British  North  America  should  ever  be  sev- 
ered from  England,  or  that  the  Australian  colonies  should 
ever  be  so  severed,  will  by  many  Englishmen  be  deemed  un- 
patriotic. But  I  think  that  such  severance  is  to  be  wished 
if  it  be  the  case  that  the  colonies  standing  alone  would  be- 
come more  prosperous  than  they  are  under  British  rule. 
"We  have  before  us  an  example  in  the  United  States  of  the 
prosperity  which  has  attended  such  a  rupture  of  old  ties. 
I  will  not  now  contest  the  point  with  those  who  say  that 
the  present  moment  of  an  American  civil  war  is  ill  chosen 
for  vaunting  that  prosperity.  There  stand  the  cities  which 
the  people  have  built,  and  their  power  is  attested  by  the 
world-wide  importance  of  their  present  contest.  And  if 
the  States  have  so  risen  since  they  left  their  parent's  apron- 
string,  why  should  not  British  North  America  rise  as  high? 
That  the  time  has  as  yet  come  for  such  rising  I  do  not 
think;  but  that  it  will  soon  come  I  do  most  heartily  hope. 
The  making  of  the  railway  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and 
the  amalgamation  of  the  provinces  would  greatly  tend  to 


WHY  DOES  GREAT  BRITAIN  KEEP  HER  COLONIES?  9t 

such  an  event.  If,  therefore,  England  desires  to  keep  these 
colonics  in  a  state  of  dependency;  if  it  be  more  essential 
to  her  to  maintain  her  own  power  with  regard  to  them  than 
to  increase  their  influence ;  if  her  main  object  be  to  keep 
the  colonies  and  not  to  improve  the  colonies,  then  I  should 
say  that  an  amalgamation  of  the  Canadas  with  Nova  Sco- 
tia and  New  Brunswick  should  not  be  regarded  with  favor 
by  statesmen  in  Downing  Street.  But  if,  as  I  would  fain 
hope,  and  do  partly  believe,  such  ideas  of  national  power 
as  these  are  now  out  of  vogue  with  British  statesmen,  then 
I  think  that  such  an  amalgamation  should  receive  all  the 
support  which  Downing  Street  can  give  it. 

The  United  States  severed  themselves  from  Great  Britain 
with  a  great  struggle,  and  after  heart-burnings  and  blood- 
shed. Whether  Great  Britain  will  ever  allow  any  colony 
of  hera  to  depart  from  out  of  her  nest,  to  secede  and  start 
for  herself,  without  any  struggle  or  heart-burnings,  with  all 
furtherance  for  such  purpose  which  an  old  and  powerful 
country  can  give  to  a  new  nationality  then  first  taking  its 
own  place  in  the  world's  arena,  is  a  problem  yet  to  be 
solved.  There  is,  I  think,  no  more  beautiful  sight  than  that 
of  a  mother,  still  in  all  the  glory  of  womanhood,  preparing 
the  wedding  trousseau  for  her  daughter.  The  child  hither- 
to has  been  obedient  and  submissive.  She  has  been  one  of 
a  household  in  which  she  has  held  no  command.  She  has 
sat  at  table  as  a  child,  fitting  herself  in  all  things  to  the 
behests  of  others.  But  the  day  of  her  power  and  her  glor}^ 
and  also  of  her  cares  and  solicitude,  is  at  hand.  She  is  to 
go  forth,  and  do  as  she  best  may  in  the  world  under  that 
teaching  which  her  old  home  has  given  her.  The  hour  of 
separation  has  come;  and  the  mother,  smiling  through  her 
tears,  sends  her  forth  decked  with  a  bounteous  hand,  and 
furnished  with  full  stores,  so  that  all  may  be  well  with  her 
as  she  enters  on  her  new  duties.  So  is  it  that  England 
should  send  forth  her  daughters.  They  should  not  escape 
from  her  arms  with  shrill  screams  and  bleeding  wounds, 
with  ill-omened  words  which  live  so  long,  though  the  speak- 
ers of  them  lie  cold  in  their  graves. 

But  this  sending  forth  of  a  child-nation  to  take  its  own 
political  status  in  the  world  has  never  yet  been  done  by 
Great  Britain.  I  cannot  remember  that  such  has  ever  been 
done  by  any  great  power  with  reference  to  its  dependency ; 
by  any  power  that  was  powerful  enough  to  keep  such  de- 

9 


98 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


pendency  within  its  grasp.  But  a  man  thinking  on  these 
matters  cannot  but  hope  that  a  time  will  come  when  such 
amicable  severance  may  be  effected.  Great  Britain  cannot 
think  that  through  all  coming  ages  she  is  to  be  the  mistress 
of  the  vast  continent  of  Australia,  lying  on  the  other  side 
of  the  globe's  surface ;  that  she  is  to  be  the  mistress  of  all 
South  Africa,  as  civilization  shall  extend  northward ;  that 
the  enormous  territories  of  British  North  America  are  to 
be  subject  forever  to  a  veto  from  Downing  Street.  If  the 
history  of  past  empires  does  not  teach  her  that  this  may 
not  be  so,  at  least  the  history  of  the  United  States  might 
so  teach  her.  ''But  we  have  learned  a  lesson  from  those 
United  States,"  the  patriot  will  argue  who  dares  to  hope 
that  the  glory  and  extent  of  the  British  empire  may  remain 
unimpaired  in  saecula  saeculorum.  '  Since  that  day  we 
have  given  political  rights  to  our  colonies,  and  have  satis- 
fied the  political  longings  of  their  inhabitants.  We  do  not 
tax  their  tea  and  stamps,  but  leave  it  to  them  to  tax  them- 
selves as  they  may  please."  True.  But  in  political  aspira- 
tions the  giving  of  an  inch  has  ever  created  the  desire  for 
an  ell.  If  the  Australian  colonies  even  now,  with  their 
scanty  population  and  still  young  civilization,  chafe  against 
imperial  interference,  will  they  submit  to  it  when  they  feel 
within  their  veins  all  the  full  blood  of  political  manhood  ? 
What  is  the  cry  even  of  the  Canadians — of  the  Canadians 
who  are  thoroughly  loyal  to  England  ?  Send  us  a  faineant 
governor,  a  King  Log,  who  will  not  presume  to  interfere 
with  us ;  a  governor  who  will  spend  his  money  and  live  like 
a  gentleman,  and  care  little  or  nothing  for  politics.  That 
is  the  Canadian  beau  ideal  of  a  governor.  They  are  to 
govern  themselves ;  and  he  who  comes  to  them  from  Eng- 
land is  to  sit  among  them  as  the  silent  representative  of 
England's  protection.  If  that  be  true — and  I  do  not  think 
that  any  who  know  the  Canadas  will  deny  it — must  it  not 
be  presumed  that  they  will  soon  also  desire  a  faineant  min- 
ister in  Downing  Street  ?  Of  course  they  will  so  desire. 
Men  do  not  become  milder  in  their  aspirations  for  political 
power  the  more  that  political  power  is  extended  to  them. 
Nor  would  it  be  well  that  they  should  be  so  humble  in  their 
desires.  Nations  devoid  of  political  power  have  never 
risen  high  in  the  world's  esteem.  Even  when  they  have 
been  commercially  successful,  commerce  has  not  brought  to 
them  the  greatness  which  it  has  always  given  when  joined 


WHAT  SHALL  CANADA  DO  WITH  HERSELF?  99 

with  a  strong  political  existence.  The  Greeks  are  commer- 
cially rich  and  active;  but  "Greece"  and  "  Greek"  are  by- 
words now  for  all  tliat  is  mean.  Cuba  is  a  colony,  and 
putting  aside  the  cities  of  the  States,  the  Havana  is  the 
richest  town  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  com- 
mercially the  greatest;  but  the  political  villainy  of  Cuba, 
her  daily  importation  of  slaves,  her  breaches  of  treaty,  and 
the  bribery  of  her  all  but  royal  governor,  are  known  to  all 
men.  But  Canada  is  not  dishonest ;  Canada  is  no  by- 
word for  anything  evil;  Canada  eats  her  own  bread  in  the 
sweat  of  her  brow,  and  fears  a  bad  word  from  no  man. 
True.  But  why  does  New  York,  Avith  its  suburbs,  boast  a 
million  of  inhabitants,  while  Montreal  has  85,000  ?  Why 
has  that  babe  in  years,  Chicago,  120,000,  while  Toronto 
has  not  half  the  number?  I  do  not  say  that  Montreal  and 
Toronto  should  have  gone  ahead  abreast  with  New  York  and 
Chicago.  In  such  races  one  must  be  first,  and  one  last. 
But  I  do  say  that  the  Canadian  towns  will  have  no  equal 
chance  till  they  are  actuated  by  that  feeling  of  political 
independence  which  has  created  the  growth  of  the  towns  in 
the  United  States. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  time  has  yet  come  in  which  Great 
Britain  should  desire  the  Canadians  to  start  for  themselves. 
There  is  the  making  of  that  railroad  to  be  effected,  and 
something  done  toward  the  union  of  those  provinces.  Can- 
ada could  no  more  stand  alone  without  New  Brunswick  and 
Nova  Scotia,  than  could  those  latter  colonies  without  Can- 
ada. But  I  think  it  would  be  well  to  be  prepared  for  such 
a  coming  day ;  and  that  it  would  at  any  rate  be  well  to 
bring  home  to  ourselves  and  realize  the  idea  of  such  seces- 
sion on  the  part  of  our  colonies,  when  the  time  shall  have 
come  at  which  such  secession  may  be  carried  out  with  profit 
and  security  to  them.  Great  Britain,  should  she  ever  send 
forth  her  child  alone  into  the  world,  must  of  course  guar- 
antee her  security.  Such  guarantees  are  given  by  treaties; 
and,  in  the  wording  of  them,  it  is  presumed  that  such  trea- 
ties will  last  forever.  It  will  be  argued  that  in  starting 
British  North  America  as  a  political  power  on  its  own  bot- 
tom, we  should  bind  ourself  to  all  the  expense  of  its  defense, 
while  we  should  give  up  all  right  to  any  interference  in  its 
concerns ;  and  that,  from  a  state  of  things  so  unprofitable 
as  this,  there  would  be  no  prospect  of  a  deliverance.  But 
such  treaties,  let  them  be  worded  how  they  will,  do  not  last 


100 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


forever.  For  a  time,  no  doubt,  Great  Britain  would  be  so 
hampered — if  indeed  she  would  feel  herself  hampered  by 
extending  her  name  and  prestige  to  a  country  bound  to  her 
by  ties  such  as  those  which  would  then  exist  between  her 
and  this  new  nation.  Such  treaties  are  not  everlasting, 
nor  can  they  be  made  to  last  even  for  ages.  Those  who 
word  them  seem  to  think  that  powers  and  dynasties  will 
never  pass  away.  But  they  do  pass  away,  and  the  balance 
of  power  will  not  keep  itself  fixed  forever  on  the  same 
pivot.  The  time  may  come — that  it  may  not  come  soon  we 
will  all  desire — but  the  time  may  come  when  the  name  and 
prestige  of  what  we  call  British  North  America  will  be  as 
serviceable  to  Great  Britain  as  those  of  Great  Britain  are 
now  serviceable  to  her  colonies. 

But  what  shall  be  the  new  form  of  government  for  the 
new  kingdom  ?  That  is  a  speculation  very  interesting  to  a 
politician,  though  one  which  to  follow  out  at  great  length 
in  these  early  days  would  be  rather  premature.  That  it 
should  be  a  kingdom — that  the  political  arrangement  should 
be  one  of  which  a  crowned  hereditary  king  should  form  a 
part — nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  Englishmen  would  de- 
sire ;  and,  as  I  fancy,  so  would  also  nineteen  out  of  every 
twenty  Canadians.  A  king  for  the  United  States,  when 
they  first  established  themselves,  was  impossible.  A  total 
rupture  from  the  Old  World  and  all  its  habits  was  necessary 
for  them.  The  name  of  a  king,  or  monarch,  or  sovereign 
had  become  horrible  to  their  ears.  Even  to  this  day  they 
have  not  learned  the  difference  between  arbitrary  power 
retained  in  the  hand  of  one  man,  such  as  that  now  held  by 
the  Emperor  over  the  French,  and  such  hereditary  headship 
in  the  State  as  that  which  belongs  to  the  Crown  in  Great 
Britain.  And  this  was  necessary,  seeing  that  their  division 
from  us  was  effected  by  strife,  and  carried  out  with  war  and 
bitter  animosities.  In  those  days  also  there  was  a  remnant, 
though  but  a  small  remnant,  of  the  power  of  tyranny  left 
within  the  scope  of  the  British  Crown.  That  small  remnant 
has  been  removed ;  and  to  me  it  seems  that  no  form  of  ex- 
isting government,  no  form  of  government  that  ever  did 
exist,  gives  or  has  given  so  large  a  measure  of  individual 
freedom  to  all  who  live  under  it  as  a  constitutional  mon- 
archy in  which  the  Crown  is  divested  of  direct  political 
power. 

I  will  venture  then  to  suggest  a  king  for  this  new  nation ; 


NIAGARA. 


101 


and,  seeing  that  we  are  rich  in  princes,  there  need  be  no 
difiQculty  in  the  selection.  Would  it  not  be  beautiful  to  see 
a  new  nation  established  under  such  auspices,  and  to  estab- 
lish a  people  to  whom  their  independence  had  been  given, 
to  whom  it  had  been  freely  surrendered  as  soon  as  they  were 
capable  of  holding  the  position  assigned  to  them ! 


CHAPTER  YII. 

NIAGARA. 

Op  all  the  sights  on  this  earth  of  ours  which  tourists 
travel  to  see — at  least  of  all  those  which  I  have  seen — I  am 
inclined  to  give  the  palm  to  the  Falls  of  Niagara.  In  the 
catalogue  of  such  sights  I  intend  to  include  all  buildings, 
pictures,  statues,  and  wonders  of  art  made  by  men's  hands, 
and  also  all  beauties  of  nature  prepared  by  the  Creator  for 
the  delight  of  his  creatures.  This  is  a  long  word;  but,  as 
far  as  my  taste  and  judgment  go,  it  is  justified.  I  know  no 
other  one  thing  so  beautiful,  so  glorious,  and  so  powerful. 
I  would  not  by  this  be  understood  as  saying  that  a  traveler 
wishing  to  do  the  best  with  his  time  should  first  of  all  places 
seek  Niagara.  In  visiting  Florence  he  may  learn  almost 
all  that  modern  art  can  teach.  At  Rome  he  will  be  brought 
to  understand  the  cold  hearts,  correct  eyes,  and  cruel  ambi- 
tion of  the  old  Latin  race.  In  Switzerland  he  will  surround 
himself  with  a  flood  of  grandeur  and  loveliness,  and  fill 
himself,  if  he  be  capable  of  such  filling,  with  a  flood  of 
romance.  The  tropics  will  unfold  to  him  all  that  vegetation 
in  its  greatest  richness  can  produce.  In  Paris  he  will  find 
the  supreme  of  polish,  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  varnish  accord- 
ing to  the  world's  capability  of  varnishing.  And  in  Lon- 
don he  will  find  the  supreme  of  power,  the  ne  plus  ultra  of 
work  according  to  the  world's  capability  of  working.  Any 
one  of  such  journeys  may  be  more  valuable  to  a  man — nay, 
any  one  such  journey  must  be  more  valuable  to  a  man — than 
a  visit  to  Niagara.   At  Niagara  there  is  that  fall  of  waters 

9* 


102 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


alone.  But  that  fall  is  more  graceful  tlian  Giotto's  tower, 
more  noble  than  the  Apollo.  The  peaks  of  the  Alps  are 
not  so  astounding  in  their  solitude.  The  valleys  of  the 
Blue  Mountains  in  Jamaica  are  less  green.  The  finished 
glaze  of  life  in  Paris  is  less  invariable ;  and  the  full  tide  of 
trade  round  the  Bank  of  England  is  not  so  inexorably  pow- 
erful. 

I  came  across  an  artist  at  Niagara  who  was  attempting 
to  draw  the  spray  of  the  waters.  "You  have  a  difficult 
subject,"  said  I.  "All  subjects  are  difficult,"  he  replied, 
"to  a  man  who  desires  to  do  well."  "  But  yours,  I  fear,  is 
impossible,"  I  said.  "You  have  no  right  to  say  so  till  I 
have  finished  my  picture,"  he  replied.  I  acknowledged  the 
justice  of  his  rebuke,  regretted  that  I  could  not  remain  till 
the  completion  of  his  work  should  enable  me  to  revoke  my 
words,  and  passed  on.  Then  I  began  to  reflect  whether  I 
did  not  intend  to  try  a  task  as  difficult  in  describing  the 
falls,  and  whether  I  felt  any  of  that  proud  self-confidence 
which  kept  him  happy  at  any  rate  while  his  task  was  in 
hand.  I  will  not  say  that  it  is  as  difficult  to  describe  aright 
that  rush  of  waters  as  it  is  to  paint  it  well.  But  I  doubt 
whether  it  is  not  quite  as  difficult  to  write  a  description  that 
shall  interest  the  reader  as  it  is  to  paint  a  picture  of  them 
that  shall  be  pleasant  to  the  beholder.  My  friend  the  artist 
was  at  any  rate  not  afraid  to  make  the  attempt,  and  I  also 
will  try  my  hand. 

That  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  have  come  down  in  their 
courses  from  the  broad  basins  of  Lake  Michigan,  Lake  Su- 
perior, and  Lake  Huron  ;  that  these  waters  fall  into  Lake 
Ontario  by  the  short  and  rapid  river  of  Niagara ;  and  that 
the  falls  of  Niagara  are  made  by  a  sudden  break  in  the  level 
of  this  rapid  river,  is  probably  known  to  all  who  will  read  this 
book.  All  the  waters  of  these  huge  northern  inland  seas 
run  over  that  breach  in  the  rocky  bottom  of  the  stream  ; 
and  thence  it  comes  tliat  the  flow  is  unceasing  in  its  gran- 
deur, and  that  no  eye  can  perceive  a  difference  in  the  weight, 
or  sound,  or  violence  of  the  fall,  whether  it  be  visited  in  the 
drought  of  autumn,  amid  the  storms  of  winter,  or  after  the 
melting  of  the  upper  worlds  of  ice  in  the  days  of  the  early 
summer.  How  many  cataracts  does  the  habitual  tourist 
visit  at  which  the  waters  fail  him  !  But  at  Niagara  the 
waters  never  fail.  There  it  thunders  over  its  ledge  in  a 
volume  that  never  ceases  and  is  never  diminished — as  it 


NIAGAHA. 


103 


has  done  from  times  previous  to  the  life  of  man,  and  as  it 
will  do  till  tens  of  thousands  of  years  shall  see  the  rocky 
bed  of  the  river  worn  away  back  to  the  upper  lake. 

This  stream  divides  Canada  from  the  States — the  western 
or  farthermost  bank  belonging  to  the  British  Crown,  and 
the  eastern  or  nearer  bank  being  in  the  State  of  New  York. 
In  visiting  Niagara,  it  always  becomes  a  question  on  which 
side  the  visitor  shall  take  up  his  quarters.  On  the  Canada 
side  there  is  no  town ;  but  there  is  a  large  hotel  beautifully 
placed  immediately  opposite  to  the  falls,  and  this  is  gener- 
ally thought  to  be  the  best  locality  for  tourists.  In  the 
State  of  Xew  York  is  the  town  called  Niagara  Falls ;  and 
here  there  are  two  large  hotels,  which,  as  to  their  immediate 
site,  are  not  so  well  placed  as  that  in  Canada.  I  first  vis- 
ited Niagara  some  three  years  since.  I  stayed  then  at  the 
Clifton  House,  on  the  Canada  side,  and  have  since  sworn 
by  that  position.  But  the  Clifton  House  was  closed  for  the 
season  when  I  was  last  there,  and  on  that  account  we  went 
to  the  Cataract  House,  in  the  town  on  the  other  side.  I 
now  think  that  I  should  set  up  my  staff  on  the  American 
side,  if  I  went  again.  My  advice  on  the  subject  to  any 
party  starting  for  Niagara  would  depend  upon  their  habits 
or  on  their  nationality.  I  would  send  Americans  to  the 
Canadian  side,  because  they  dislike  walking ;  but  English 
people  I  would  locate  on  the  American  side,  seeing  that 
they  are  generally  accustomed  to  the  frequent  use  of  their 
own  legs.  The  two  sides  are  not  very  easily  approached 
one  from  the  other.  Immediately  below  the  falls  there  is  a 
ferry,  which  may  be  traversed  at  the  expense  of  a  shilling ; 
but  the  labor  of  getting  up  and  down  from  the  ferry  is  con- 
siderable, and  the  passage  becomes  wearisome.  There  is 
also  a  bridge  ;  but  it  is  two  miles  down  the  river,  making  a 
walk  or  drive  of  four  miles  necessary,  and  the  toll  for  pass- 
ing is  four  shillings,  or  a  dollar,  in  a  carriage,  and  one  shil- 
ling on  foot.  As  the  greater  variety  of  prospect  can  be 
had  on  the  American  side,  as  the  island  between  the  two 
falls  is  approachable  from  the  American  side  and  not  from 
the  Canadian,  and  as  it  is  in  this  island  that  visitors  will  best 
love  to  linger,  and  learn  to  measure  in  their  minds  the  vast 
triumph  of  waters  before  them,  I  recommend  such  of  my 
readers  as  can  trust  a  little — it  need  be  but  a  little — to  their 
own  legs  to  select  their  hotel  at  Niagara  Falls  town. 

It  has  been  said  that  it  matters  much  from  what  point 


104 


KORTH  AMERICA. 


the  falls  are  first  seen,  but  to  this  I  demur.  It  matters,  I 
think,  very  little,  or  not  at  all.  Let  the  visitor  first  see  it 
all,  and  learn  the  whereabouts  of  every  point,  so  as  to  un- 
derstand his  own  position  and  that  of  the  waters;  and  then, 
having  done  that  in  the  way  of  business,  let  him  proceed  to 
enjoyment.  I  doubt  whether  it  be  not  the  best  to  do  this 
with  all  sight-seeing.  I  am  quite  sure  that  it  is  the  way  in 
which  acquaintance  may  be  best  and  most  pleasantly  made 
with  a  new  picture. 

The  falls,  as  I  have  said,  are  made  by  a  sudden  breach  in 
the  level  of  the  river.  All  cataracts  are,  I  presume,  made 
by  such  breaches  ;  but  generally  the  waters  do  not  fall  pre- 
cipitously as  they  do  at  Niagara,  and  never  elsewhere,  as  far 
as  the  world  yet  knows,  has  a  breach  so  sudden  been  made 
in  a  river  carrying  in  its  channel  such  or  any  approach  to 
such  a  body  of  water.  Up  above  the  falls  for  more  than  a 
mile  the  waters  leap  and  burst  over  rapids,  as  though  con- 
scious of  the  destiny  that  awaits  them.  Here  the  river  is 
very  broad  and  comparatively  shallow ;  but  from  shore  to 
shore  it  frets  itself  into  little  torrents,  and  begins  to  assume 
the  majesty  of  its  power.  Looking  at  it  even  here,  in  the 
expanse  which  forms  itself  over  the  greater  fall,  one  feels 
sure  that  no  strongest  swimmer  could  have  a  chance  of 
saving  himself  if  fate  had  cast  him  in  even  among  those 
petty  whirlpools.  The  waters,  though  so  broken  in  their 
descent,  are  deliciously  green.  This  color,  as  seen  early  in 
the  morning  or  just  as  the  sun  has  set,  is  so  bright  as  to 
give  to  the  place  one  of  its  chiefest  charms. 

This  will  be  best  seen  from  the  farther  end  of  the  island 
— Goat  Island  as  it  is  called — which,  -as  the  reader  will  un- 
derstand, divides  the  river  immediately  above  the  falls.  In- 
deed, the  island  is  a  part  of  that  precipitously-broken  ledge 
over  which  the  river  tumbles,  and  no  doubt  in  process  of 
time  will  be  worn  away  and  covered  with  water.  The  time, 
however,  will  be  very  long.  In  the  mean  while,  it  is  per- 
haps a  mile  round,  and  is  covered  thickly  with  timber.  At 
the  upper  end  of  the  island  the  waters  are  divided,  and, 
coming  down  in  two  courses  each  over  its  own  rapids,  form 
two  separate  falls.  The  bridge  by  which  the  island  is  en- 
tered is  a  hundred  yards  or  more  above  the  smaller  fall. 
The  waters  here  have  been  turned  by  the  island,  and  make 
their  leap  into  the  body  of  the  river  below  at  a  right  angle 
with  it — about  two  hundred  yards  below  the  greater  fall. 


NIAGARA. 


105 


Taken  alone,  this  smaller  cataract  would,  I  imagine,  be  the 
heaviest  fall  of  water  known;  but  taken  in  conjunction  with 
the  other,  it  is  terribly  shorn  of  its  majesty.  The  waters 
here  are  not  green  as  they  are  at  the  larger  cataract ;  and, 
though  the  ledge  has  been  hollowed  and  bowed  by  them  so 
as  to  form  a  curve,  that  curve  does  not  deepen  itself  into  a 
vast  abyss  as  it  does  at  the  horseshoe  up  above.  This 
smaller  fall  is  again  divided ;  and  the  visitor,  passing  down 
a  flight  of  steps  and  over  a  frail  wooden  bridge,  finds  him- 
self on  a  smaller  island  in  the  midst  of  it. 

But  we  will  go  at  once  on  to  the  glory,  and  the  thunder, 
and  the  majesty,  and  the  wrath  of  that  upper  hell  of  waters. 
We  are  still,  let  the  reader  remember,  on  Goat  Island — still 
in  the  States — and  on  what  is  called  the  American  side  of 
the  main  body  of  the  river.  Advancing  beyond  the  path 
leading  down  to  the  lesser  fall,  we  come  to  that  point  of  the 
island  at  which  the  waters  of  the  main  river  begin  to  descend. 
From  hence  across  to  the  Canadian  side  the  cataract  con- 
tinues itself  in  one  unabated  line.  But  the  line  is  very  far 
from  being  direct  or  straight.  After  stretching  for  some 
little  way  from  the  shore  to  a  point  in  the  river  which  is 
reached  by  a  wooden  bridge  at  the  end  of  which  stands  a 
tower  upon  the  rock, — after  stretching  to  this,  the  line  of 
the  ledge  bends  inward  against  the  flood — in,  and  in,  and 
in — till  one  is  led  to  think  that  the  depth  of  that  horseshoe 
is  immeasurable.  It  has  been  cut  with  no  stinting  hand. 
A  monstrous  cantle  has  been  worn  back  out  of  the  center 
of  the  rock,  so  that  the  fury  of  the  waters  converges  ;  and 
the  spectator,  as  he  gazes  into  the  hollow  with  wishful  eyes, 
fancies  that  he  can  hardly  trace  out  the  center  of  the  abyss. 

Go  down  to  the  end  of  that  wooden  bridge,  seat  yourself 
on  the  rail,  and  there  sit  till  all  the  outer  world  is  lost  to  you. 
There  is  no  grander  spot  about  Niagara  than  this.  The 
waters  are  absolutely  around  you.  If  you  have  that  power 
of  eye-contrio  which  is  so  necessary  to  the  full  enjoyment  of 
scenery,  you  will  see  nothing  but  the  water.  You  will  cer- 
tainly hear  nothing  else  ;  and  the  sound,  I  beg  you  to  re- 
member, is  not  an  ear-cracking,  agonizing  crash  and  clang 
of  noises,  but  is  melodious  and  soft  withal,  though  loud  as 
thunder.  It  fills  your  ears,  and,  as  it  were,  envelops  them, 
but  at  the  same  time  you  can  speak  to  your  neighbor  with- 
out an  effort.  But  at  this  place,  and  in  these  moments,  the 
less  of  speaking,  I  should  say,  the  better.    There  is  no 


106 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


grander  spot  than  this.  Here,  seated  on  the  rail  of  the 
bridge,  you  will  not  see  the  whole  depth  of  the  fall.  In 
looking  at  the  grandest  works  of  nature,  and  of  art  too,  I 
fancy  it  is  never  well  to  see  all.  There  should  be  something 
left  to  the  imagination,  and  much  should  be  half  concealed 
in  mystery.  The  greatest  charm  of  a  mountain  range  is 
the  wild  feeling  that  there  must  be  strange,  unknown,  deso- 
late worlds  in  those  far-off  valleys  beyond.  And  so  here, 
at  Niagara,  that  converging  rush  of  waters  may  fall  down, 
down  at  once  into  a  hell  of  rivers,  for  what  the  eye  can  see. 
It  is  glorious  to  watch  them  in  their  first  curve  over  the 
rocks.  They  come  green  as  a  bank  of  emeralds,  but  with 
a  fitful,  flying  color,  as  though  conscious  that  in  one  mo- 
ment more  they  would  be  dashed  into  spray  and  rise  into  air, 
pale  as  driven  snow.  The  vapor  rises  high  into  the  air,  and 
is  gathered  there,  visible  always  as  a  permanent  white  cloud 
over  the  cataract ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  spray  which  fills  the 
lower  hollow  of  that  horseshoe  is  like  a  tumult  of  snow. 
This  you  will  not  fully  see  from  your  seat  on  the  rail.  The 
head  of  it  rises  ever  and  anon  out  of  that  caldron  below, 
but  the  caldron  itself  will  be  invisible.  It  is  ever  so  far 
down — far  as  your  own  imagination  can  sink  it.  But  your 
eyes  will  rest  full  upon  the  curve  of  the  waters.  The  shape 
you  will  be  looking  at  is  that  of  a  horseshoe,  but  of  a 
horseshoe  miraculously  deep  from  toe  to  heel ;  and  this 
depth  becomes  greater  as  you  sit  there.  That  which  at 
first  was  only  great  and  beautiful  becomes  gigantic  and 
sublime,  till  the  mind  is  at  loss  to  find  an  epithet  for  its 
own  use.  To  realize  Niagara,  you  must  sit  there  till  you 
see  nothing  else  than  that  which  you  have  come  to  see. 
You  will  hear  nothing  else,  and  think  of  nothing  else.  At 
length  you  will  be  at  one  with  the  tumbling  river  before 
you.  You  will  find  yourself  among  the  waters  as  though 
you  belonged  to  them.  The  cool,  liquid  green  will  run 
through  your  veins,  and  the  voice  of  the  cataract  will  be 
the  expression  of  your  own  heart.  You  will  fall  as  the 
bright  waters  fall,  rushing  down  into  your  new  world  with 
no  hesitation  and  with  no  dismay ;  and  you  will  rise  again 
as  the  spray  rises,  bright,  beautiful,  and  pure.  Then  you 
will  flow  away  in  your  course  to  the  uncompassed,  distant, 
and  eternal  ocean. 

When  this  state  has  been  reached  and  has  passed  away, 
you  may  get  off  your  rail  and  mount  the  tower.    I  do  not 


NIAGARA. 


quite  approve  of  tliat  tower,  seeing  that  it  has  about  it  a 
gingerbread  air,  and  reminds  one  of  those  well-arranged 
scenes  of  romance  in  which  one  is  told  that  on  the  left  you 
turn  to  the  lady's  bower,  price  sixpence ;  and  on  the  right 
ascend  to  the  knight's  bed,  price  sixpence  more,  with  a  view 
of  the  hermit's  tomb  thrown  in.  But  nevertheless  the  tower 
is  worth  mounting,  and  no  money  is  charged  for  the  use  of 
it.  It  is  not  very  high,  and  there  is  a  balcony  at  the  top 
on  which  some  half  dozen  persons  may  stand  at  ease.  Here 
the  mystery  is  lost,  but  the  whole  fall  is  seen.  It  is  not 
even  at  this  spot  brought  so  fully  before  your  eye,  made  to 
show  itself  in  so  complete  and  entire  a  shape,  as  it  will  do 
when  you  come  to  stand  near  to  it  on  the  opposite  or  Ca- 
nadian shore.  But  I  think  that  it  shows  itself  more  beauti- 
fully. And  the  form  of  the  cataract  is  such  that  here,  on 
Goat  Island,  on  the  American  side,  no  spray  will  reach  you, 
although  you  are  absolutely  over  the  waters.  But  on  the 
Canadian  side,  the  road  as  it  approaches  the  fall  is  wet  and 
rotten  with  spray,  and  you,  as  you  stand  close  upon  the 
edge,  will  be  wet  also.  The  rainbows  as  they  are  seen 
through  the  rising  cloud — for  the  sun's  rays  as  seen  through 
these  waters  show  themselves  in  a  bow,  as  they  do  when 
seen  through  rain  —  are  pretty  enough,  and  are  greatly 
loved.  For  myself,  I  do  not  care  for  this  prettiness  at 
Niagara.  It  is  there,  but  I  forget  it,  and  do  not  mind  how 
soon  it  is  forgotten. 

But  we  are  still  on  the  tower ;  and  here  I  must  declare 
that  though  I  forgive  the  tower,  I  cannot  forgive  the  hor- 
rid obelisk  which  has  latterly  been  built  opposite  to  it,  on 
the  Canadian  side,  up  above  the  fall;  built  apparently — for 
I  did  not  go  to  it — with  some  camera-obscura  intention  for 
which  the  projector  deserves  to  be  put  in  Coventry  by  all 
good  Christian  men  and  women.  At  such  a  place  as  Niag- 
ara tasteless  buildings,  run  up  in  wrong  places  with  a  view 
to  money  making,  are  perhaps  necessary  evils.  It  may  be  that 
they  are  not  evils  at  all ;  that  they  give  more  pleasure  than 
pain,  seeing  that  they  tend  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  multi- 
tude. But  there  are  edifices  of  this  description  which  cry 
aloud  to  the  gods  by  the  force  of  their  own  ugliness  and 
malposition.  As  to  such,  it  may  be  said  that  there  should 
somewhere  exist  a  power  capable  of  crushing  them  in  their 
birth.  This  new  obelisk,  or  picture-building  at  Niagara, 
is  one  of  such. 


103 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


And  now  we  will  cross  the  water,  and  with  this  object 
will  return  by  the  bridge  out  of  Goat  Island,  on  the  main 
land  of  the  American  side.  But  as  we  do  so,  let  me  say 
that  one  of  the  great  charms  of  x^iagara  consists  in  this: 
that  over  and  above  that  one  great  object  of  wonder  and 
beauty,  there  is  so  much  little  loveliness — loveliness  especi- 
ally of  water  I  mean.  There  are  little  rivulets  running  here 
and  there  over  little  falls,  with  pendent  boughs  above  them, 
and  stones  shining  under  their  shallow  depths.  As  the  vis- 
itor stands  and  looks  through  the  trees,  the  rapids  glitter 
before  him,  and  then  hide  themselves  behind  islands.  They 
glitter  and  sparkle  in  far  distances  under  the  bright  foliage, 
till  the  remembrance  is  lost,  and  one  knows  not  which  way 
they  run.  And  then  the  river  below,  with  its  whirlpool, — 
but  we  shall  come  to  that  by-and-by,  and  to  the  mad  voyage 
which  was  made  down  the  rapids  by  that  mad  captain  who 
ran  the  gantlet  of  the  waters  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life, 
with  fifty  to  one  against  him,  in  order  that  he  might  save 
another  man's  property  from  the  sheriff. 

The  readiest  way  across  to  Canada  is  by  the  ferry ;  and 
on  the  American  side  this  is  very  pleasantly  done.  You 
go  into  a  little  house,  pay  twenty  cents,  take  a  seat  on  a 
wooden  car  of  wonderful  shape,  and  on  the  touch  of  a 
spring  find  yourself  traveling  down  an  inclined  plane  of 
terrible  declivity,  and  at  a  very  fast  rate.  You  catch  a 
glance  of  the  river  below  you,  and  recognize  the  fact  that 
if  the  rope  by  which  you  are  held  should  break,  you  would 
go  down  at  a  very  fast  rate  indeed,  and  find  your  final  rest- 
ing-place in  the  river.  As  I  have  gone  down  some  dozen 
times,  and  have  come  to  no  such  grief,  I  will  not  presume 
that  you  will  be  less  lucky.  Below  there  is  a  boat  gener- 
ally ready.  If  it  be  not  there,  the  place  is  not  chosen  amiss 
for  a  rest  of  ten  minutes,  for  the  lesser  fall  is  close  at  hand, 
and  the  larger  one  is  in  full  view.  Looking  at  the  rapidity 
of  the  river,  you  will  think  that  the  passage  must  be  dan- 
gerous and  difficult.  But  no  accidents  ever  happen,  and 
the  lad  who  takes  you  over  seems  to  do  it  with  sufficient 
ease.  The  walk  up  the  hill  on  the  other  side  is  another 
thing.  It  is  very  steep,  and  for  those  who  have  not  good 
locomotive  power  of  their  own,  will  be  found  to  be  disa- 
greeable. In  the  full  season,  however,  carriages  are  gener- 
ally waiting  there.  In  so  short  a  distance  I  have  always 
been  ashamed  to  trust  to  other  legs  than  my  own,  but  I 


NIAGARA. 


109 


have  observed  that  Americans  are  always  dragged  up.  I 
have  seen  single  young  men  of  from  eighteen  to  twenty-five, 
from  whose  outward  appearance  no  story  of  idle,  luxurious 
life  can  be  read,  carried  about  alone  in  carriages  over  dis- 
tances which  would  be  counted  as  nothing  by  any  healthy 
English  lady  of  fifty.  None  but  the  old  invalids  should 
require  the  assistance  of  carriages  in  seeing  Niagara,  but 
the  trade  in  carriages  is  to  all  appearance  the  most  brisk 
trade  there. 

Having  mounted  the  hill  on  the  Canada  side,  you  will 
walk  on  toward  the  falls.  As  I  have  said  before,  you  will 
from  this  side  look  directly  into  the  full  circle  of  the  upper 
cataract,  while  you  will  have  before  you,  at  your  left  hand,  the 
whole  expanse  of  the  lesser  fall.  For  those  who  desire  to 
see  all  at  a  glance,  who  wish  to  comprise  the  whole  with 
their  eyes,  and  to  leave  nothing  to  be  guessed,  nothing  to 
be  surmised,  this  no  doubt  is  the  best  point  of  view. 

You  will  be  covered  with  spray  as  you  walk  up  to  the 
ledge  of  rocks,  but  I  do  not  think  that  the  spray  will  hurt 
you.  If  a  man  gets  wet  through  going  to  his  daily  work, 
cold,  catarrh,  cough,  and  all  their  attendant  evils,  may  be 
expected ;  but  these  maladies  usually  spare  the  tourist. 
Change  of  air,  plenty  of  air,  excellence  of  air,  and  in- 
creased exercise,  make  these  things  powerless.  I  should 
therefore  bid  you  disregard  the  spray.  If,  however,  you  are 
yourself  of  a  different  opinion,  you  may  hire  a  suit  of  oil- 
cloth clothes  for,  I  believe,  a  quarter  of  a  dollar.  They 
are  nasty  of  course,  and  have  this  further  disadvantage,  that 
you  become  much  more  wet  having  them  on  than  you  would 
be  without  them. 

Here,  on  this  side,  you  walk  on  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
cataract,  and,  if  your  tread  be  steady  and  your  legs  firm, 
you  dip  your  foot  into  the  water  exactly  at  the  spot  where 
the  thin  outside  margin  of  the  current  reaches  the  rocky 
edge  and  jumps  to  join  the  mass  of  the  fall.  The  bed  of 
white  foam  beneath  is  certainly  seen  better  here  than  else- 
where, and  the  green  curve  of  the  water  is  as  bright  here 
as  when  seen  from  the  wooden  rail  across.  But  neverthe- 
less I  say  again  that  that  wooden  rail  is  the  one  point  from 
whence  Niagara  may  be  best  seen  aright. 

Close  to  the  cataract,  exactly  at  the  spot  from  whence  in 
former  days  the  Table  Rock  used  to  project  from  the  land 
over  the  boiling  caldron  below,  there  is  now  a  shaft,  down 

10 


110 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


which  you  will  descend  to  the  level  of  the  river,  and  pass 
between  the  rock  and  the  torrent.  This  Table  Kock  broke 
away  from  the  clilf  and  fell,  as  up  the  whole  course  of  the 
river  the  seceding  rocks  have  split  and  fallen  from  time  to 
time  through  countless  years,  and  will  continue  to  do  till 
the  bed  of  the  upper  lake  is  reached.  You  will  descend 
this  shaft,  taking  to  yourself  or  not  taking  to  yourself  a 
suit  of  oil-clothes  as  you  may  think  best.  I  have  gone 
with  and  without  the  suit,  and  again  recommend  that  they  be 
left  behind.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  ordinary  pay- 
ment should  be  made  for  their  use,  as  otherwise  it  will  ap- 
pear to  those  whose  trade  it  is  to  prepare  them  that  you  are 
injuring  them  in  their  vested  rights. 

Some  three  years  since  I  visited  Niagara  on  my  way  back 
to  England  from  Bermuda,  and  in  a  volume  of  travels 
which  I  then  published  I  endeavored  to  explain  the  impres- 
sion made  upon  me  by  this  passage  between  the  rock  and 
the  waterfall.  An  author  should  not  quote  himself;  but  as 
I  feel  myself  bound,  in  writing  a  chapter  specially  about 
Niagara,  to  give  some  account  of  this  strange  position,  I 
will  venture  to  repeat  my  own  words. 

In  the  spot  to  which  I  allude  the  visitor  stands  on  a  broad, 
safe  path,  made  of  shingles,  between  the  rock  over  which 
the  water  rushes  and  the  rushing  water.  He  will  go  in  so 
far  that  the  spray,  rising  back  from  the  bed  of  the  torrent, 
does  not  incommode  him.  With  this  exception,  the  farther 
he  can  go  in  the  better;  but  circumstances  will  clearly 
show  him  the  spot  to  which  he  should  advance.  Unless  the 
water  be  driven  in  by  a  very  strong  wind,  five  yards  make 
the  difference  between  a  comparatively  dry  coat  and  an  ab- 
solutely wet  one.  And  then  let  him  stand  with  his  back  to 
the  entrance,  thus  hiding  the  last  glimmer  of  the  expiring 
day.  So  standing,  he  will  look  up  among  the  falling  wa- 
ters, or  down  into  the  deep,  misty  pit,  from  which  they  re- 
ascend  in  almost  as  palpable  a  bulk.  The  rock  will  be  at 
his  right  hand,  high  and  hard,  and  dark  and  straight,  like 
the  wall  of  some  huge  cavern,  such  as  children  enter  in 
their  dreams.  For  the  first  five  minutes  he  will  be  looking 
but  at  the  waters  of  a  cataract — at  the  waters,  indeed,  of 
such  a  cataract  as  we  know  no  other,  and  at  their  interior 
curves  which  elsewhere  we  cannot  see.  But  by-and-by  all 
this  will  change.  He  will  no  longer  be  on  a  shingly  path 
beneath  a  waterfall;  but  that  feeling  of  a  cavern  wall  will 


NIAGARA. 


Ill 


grow  upon  him,  of  a  cavern  deep,  below  roaring  seas,  in 
which  the  waves  are  there,  though  they  do  not  enter  in  upon 
him ;  or  rather,  not  the  waves,  but  the  very  bowels  of  the 
ocean.  He  will  feel  as  though  the  floods  surrounded  him, 
coming  and  going  with  their  wild  sounds,  and  he  will  hardly 
recognize  that  though  among  them  he  is  not  in  them.  And 
they,  as  they  fall  with  a  continual  roar,  not  hurting  the  ear, 
but  musical  withal,  will  seem  to  move  as  the  vast  ocean 
waters  may  perhaps  move  in  their  internal  currents.  He 
will  lose  the  sense  of  one  continued  descent,  and  think  that 
they  are  passing  round  him  in  their  appointed  courses.  The 
broken  spray  that  rises  from  the  depths  below,  rises  so 
strongly,  so  palpably,  so  rapidly  that  the  motion  in  every 
direction  will  seem  equal.  And,  as  he  looks  on,  strange 
colors  will  show  themselves  through  the  mist ;  the  shades 
of  gray  will  become  green  or  blue,  with  ever  and  anon  a 
flash  of  white ;  and  then,  when  some  gust  of  wind  blows  in 
with  greater  violence,  the  sea-girt  cavern  will  become  all 
dark  and  black.  Oh,  my  friend,  let  there  be  no  one  there 
to  speak  to  thee  then;  no,  not  even  a  brother.  As  you 
stand  there  speak  only  to  the  waters. 

Two  miles  below  the  falls  the  river  is  crossed  by  a  sus- 
pension bridge  of  marvelous  construction.  It  affords  two 
thoroughfares,  one  above  the  other.  The  lower  road  is  for 
carriages  and  horses,  and  the  upper  one  bears  a  railway  be- 
longing to  the  Great  'Western  Canada  Line.  The  view 
from  hence,  both  up  and  down  the  river,  is  very  beautiful, 
for  the  bridge  is  built  immediately  over  the  first  of  a  series 
of  rapids.  One  mile  below  the  bridge  these  rapids  end  in 
a  broad  basin  called  the  whirlpool,  and,  issuing  out  of  this, 
the  current  turns  to  the  right  through  a  narrow  channel 
overhung  by  cliffs  and  trees,  and  then  makes  its  way  down 
to  Lake  Ontario  with  comparative  tranquillity. 

But  I  will  beg  you  to  take  notice  of  those  rapids  from 
the  bridge,  and  to  ask  yourself  what  chance  of  life  vv^ould 
remain  to  any  ship,  craft,  or  boat  required  by  destiny  to 
undergo  navigation  beneath  the  bridge  and  down  into  that 
whirlpool.  Heretofore  all  men  would  have  said  that  no 
chance  of  life  could  remain  to  so  ill-starred  a  bark.  The 
navigation,  however,  has  been  effected.  But  men  used  to 
the  river  still  say  that  the  chances  would  be  fifty  to  one 
against  any  vessel  which  should  attempt  to  repeat  the  ex-- 
perimcnt. 


112 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


The  story  of  that  wondrous  voyage  was  as  follows  :  A 
small  steamer,  called  the  Maid  of  the  Mist,  was  built  upon 
the  river,  between  the  falls  and  the  rapids,  and  was  used  for 
taking  adventurous  tourists  up  amid  the  spray  as  near  to 
the  cataract  as  was  possible.  The  Maid  of  the  Mist  plied 
in  this  way  for  a  year  or  two,  and  was,  I  believe,  much  pat- 
ronized during  the  season.  But  in  the  early  part  of  last 
summer  an  evil  time  had  come.  Either  the  Maid  got  into 
debt,  or  her  owner  had  embarked  in  other  and  less  profita- 
ble speculations.  At  any  rate,  he  became  subject  to  the 
law,  and  tidings  reached  him  that  the  sheriff  would  seize 
the  Maid.  On  most  occasions  the  sheriff  is  bound  to  keep 
such  intentions  secret,  seeing  that  property  is  movable,  and 
that  an  insolvent  debtor  will  not  always  await  the  officers 
of  justice.  But  with  the  poor  Maid  there  was  no  need  of 
such  secrecy.  There  was  but  a  mile  or  so  of  water  on  which 
she  could  ply,  and  she  was  forbidden  by  the  nature  of  her 
properties  to  make  any  way  upon  land.  The  sherilf 's  prey, 
therefore,  was  easy,  and  the  poor  Maid  was  doomed. 

In  any  country  in  the  world  but  America  such  would 
have  been  the  case  ;  but  an  American  would  steam  down 
Phlegethon  to  save  his  property  from  the  sheriff — he  would 
steam  down  Phlegethon,  or  get  some  one  else  to  do  it  for 
him.  Whether  or  no,  in  this  case,  the  captain  of  the  boat 
was  the  proprietor,  or  whether,  as  I  was  told,  he  was  paid 
for  the  job,  I  do  not  know.  But  h6  determined  to  run  the 
rapids,  and  he  procured  two  others  to  accompany  him  in 
the  risk.  He  got  up  his  steam,  and  took  the  Maid  up  amid 
the  spray  according  to  his  custom.  Then,  suddenly  turning 
on  his  course,  he,  with  one  of  his  companions,  fixed  himself 
at  the  wheel,  while  the  other  remained  at  his  engine.  I 
wish  I  could  look  into  the  mind  of  that  man,  and  under- 
stand what  his  thoughts  were  at  that  moment — what  were 
his  thoughts  and  what  his  beliefs.  As  to  one  of  the  men,  I 
was  told  that  he  was  carried  down  not  knowing  what  he 
was  about  to  do  ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  all  the 
three  were  joined  together  in  the  attempt. 

I  was  told  by  a  man  who  saw  the  boat  pass  under  the 
bridge  that  she  made  one  long  leap  down,  as  she  came  thither ; 
that  her  funnel  was  at  once  knocked  flat  on  the  deck  by  the 
force  of  the  blow;  that  the  waters  covered  her  from  stem 
to  stern ;  and  that  then  she  rose  again,  and  skimmed  into 
the  whirlpool  a  mile  below.    When  there  she  rode  with 


NORTH  AND  WEST. 


113 


comparative  ease  upon  the  waters,  and  took  the  sharp  turn 
round  into  the  river  below  without  a  struggle.  The  feat 
was  done,  and  the  Maid  was  rescued  from  the  sherifl'.  It 
is  said  that  she  was  sold  below  at  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
and  carried  from  thence  over  Lake  Ontario,  and  down  the 
St.  Lawrence  to  Quebec. 


CHAPTER  YIIL 

NORTH    AND  WEST. 

From  Niagara  we  determined  to  proceed  Northwest — as 
far  to  the  Northwest  as  we  could  go  with  any  reasonable 
hope  of  finding  American  citizens  in  a  state  of  political 
civilization,  and  perhaps  guided  also  in  some  measure  by 
our  hopes  as  to  hotel  accommodation.  Looking  to  these 
two  matters,  we  resolved  to  get  across  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  to  go  up  that  river  as  far  as  the  town  of  St.  Paul  and 
the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  which  are  some  twelve  miles 
above  the  town ;  then  to  descend  the  river  as  far  as  the 
States  of  Iowa  on  the  west  and  Illinois  on  the  east ;  and  to 
return  eastward  through  Chicago  and  the  large  cities  on 
the  southern  shores  of  Lake  Erie,  from  whence  we  would 
go  across  to  Albany,  the  capital  of  New  York  'State,  and 
down  the  Hudson  to  New  York,  the  capital  of  the  Western 
World.  For  such  a  journey,  in  which  scenery  was  one  great 
object,  we  were  rather  late,  as  we  did  not  leave  Niagara 
till  the  10th  of  October ;  but  though  the  winters  are  ex- 
tremely cold  through  all  this  portion  of  the  American  con- 
tinent— fifteen,  twenty,  and  even  twenty- five  degrees  below 
zero  being  an  ordinary  state  of  the  atmosphere  in  latitudes 
equal  to  those  of  Florence,  Nice,  and  Turin — nevertheless 
the  autumns  are  mild,  the  noonday  being  always  warm, 
and  the  colors  of  the  foliage  are  then  in  all  their  glory.  I 
was  also  very  anxious  to  ascertain,  if  it  might  be  in  my 
power  to  do  so,  with  what  spirit  or  true  feeling  as  to  the 
matter  the  work  of  recruiting  for  the  now  enormous  army 
of  the  States  was  going  on  in  those  remote  regions.  That 

10* 


114 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


men  should  be  on  fire  in  Boston  and  New  York,  in  Phila- 
delphia and  along  the  borders  of  secession,  I  conld  under- 
stand. I  could  understand  also  that  they  should  be  on  fire 
throughout  the  cotton,  sugar,  and  rice  plantations  of  the 
South.  But  I  could  hardly  understand  that  this  political 
fervor  should  have  communicated  itself  to  the  far-off  farm- 
ers wlfo  had  thinly  spread  themselves  over  the  enormous 
wheat-growing  districts  of  the  Northwest.  St.  Paul,  the 
capital  of  Minnesota,  is  nine  hundred  miles  directly  north 
of  St.  Louis,  the  most  northern  point  to  which  slavery  ex- 
tends in  the  Western  States  of  the  Union  ;  and  the  farming 
lands  of  Minnesota  stretch  away  again  for  some  hundreds 
of  miles  north  and  west  of  St.  Paul.  Could  it  be  that  those 
scanty  and  far-off  pioneers  of  agriculture — those  frontier 
farmers,  who  are  nearly  one-half  German  and  nearly  the 
other  half  Irish,  would  desert  their  clearings  and  ruin  their 
chances  of  progress  in  the  world  for  distant  wars  of  which 
the  causes  must,  as  I  thought,  be  to  them  unintelligible  ?  I 
had  been  told  that  distance  had  but  lent  enchantment  to 
the  view,  and  that  the  war  was  even  more  popular  in  the 
remote  and  newly-settled  States  than  in  those  which  have 
been  longer  known  as  great  political  bodies.  So  I  resolved 
til  at  I  would  go  and  see. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  explain  here  that  that  great  political 
Union  hitherto  called  the  United  States  of  America  may  be 
more  properly  divided  into  three  than  into  two  distinct  in- 
terests. In  England  we  have  long  heard  of  North  and  South 
as  pitted  against  each  other,  and  we  have  always  understood 
that  the  Southern  politicians,  or  Democrats,  have  prevailed 
over  the  Northern  politicians,  or  Republicans,  because  they 
were  assisted  in  their  views  by  Northern  men  of  mark  who 
have  held  Southern  principles — that  is,  by  Northern  men 
who  have  been  willing  to  obtain  political  power  by  joining 
themselves  to  the  Southern  party.  That,  as  far  as  I  can 
understand,  has  been  the  general  idea  in  England,  and  in  a 
broad  way  it  has  been  true.  But  as  years  have  advanced, 
and  as  the  States  have  extended  themselves  westward,  a 
third  large  party  has  been  formed,  which  sometimes  rejoices 
to  call  itself  The  Great  West;  and  though,  at  the  present 
time,  the  West  and  the  North  are  joined  together  against 
the  South,  the  interests  of  the  North  and  West  are  not,  I 
think,  more  closely  interwoven  than  are  those  of  the  West 
and  South ;  and  when  the  final  settlement  of  this  question 


DIVISION  OP  THE  STATES. 


115 


shall  be  made,  there  will  doubtless  be  great  difficulty  in  sat- 
isfying the  different  aspirations  and  feelings  of  two  great 
free-soil  populations.  The  North,  I  think,  will  ultimately 
perceive  that  it  will  gain  much  by  the  secession  of  the  South ; 
but  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  make  the  West  believe  that 
secession  will  suit  its  views. 

I  will  attempt,  in  a  rough  way,  to  divide  the  States,  as 
they  seem  to  divide  themselves,  into  these  three  parties.  As 
to  the  majority  of  them,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  locating 
them ;  but  this  cannot  be  done  with  absolute  certainty  as 
to  some  few  that  lie  on  the  borders. 

New  England  consists  of  six  States,  of  which  all  of  course 
belong  to  the  North.  They  are  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Yermont,  Massachusetts,  Khode  Island,  and  Connecticut — 
the  six  States  which  should  be  most  dear  to  England,  and 
in  which  the  political  success  of  the  United  States  as  a  na- 
tion is  to  my  eyes  the  most  apparent.  But  even  in  them 
there  was  till  quite  of  late  a  strong  section  so  opposed  to 
the  Republican  party  as  to  give  a  material  aid  to  the  South. 
This,  I  think,  was  particularly  so  in  New  Hampshire,  from 
whence  President  Pierce  came.  He  had  been  one  of  the 
Senators  fi'om  New  Hampshire  ;  and  yet  to  him,  as  Presi- 
dent, is  affixed  the  disgrace — whether  truly  affixed  or  not  I 
do  not  say — of  having  first  used  his  power  in  secretly  or- 
ganizing those  arrangements  which  led  to  secession  and 
assisted  at  its  birth.  In  Massachusetts  itself,  also,  there 
was  a  strong  Democratic  party,  of  which  Massachusetts 
now  seems  to  be  somewhat  ashamed.  Then,  to  make  up 
the  North,  must  be  added  the  two  great  States  of  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  and  the  small  State  of  New  Jersey. 
The  West  will  not  agree  even  to  this  absolutely,  seeing  that 
they  claim  all  territory  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  that  a 
portion  of  Pennsylvania  and  some  part  also  of  New  York 
lie  westward  of  that  range ;  but,  in  endeavoring  to  make 
these  divisions  ordinarily  intelligible,  I  may  say  that  the 
North  consists  of  the  nine  States  above  named.  But  the 
North  will  also  claim  Maryland  and  Delaware,  and  the 
eastern  half  of  Yirginia.  The  North  will  claim  them,  though 
they  are  attached  to  the  South  by  joint  participation  in  the 
great  social  institution  of  slavery — for  Maryland,  Delaware, 
and  Yirginia  are  slave  States — and  I  think  that  the  North 
will  ultimately  make  good  its  claim.  Maryland  and  Dela- 
ware lie,  as  it  were,  behind  the  capital,  and  Eastern  Yirginia 


116 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


is  close  upon  the  capital.  And  these  regions  are  not  trop- 
ical in  their  climate  or  influences.  They  are  and  have  been 
slave  States,  but  will  probably  rid  themselves  of  that  taint, 
and  become  a  portion  of  tlie  free  North. 

The  Southern  or  slave  States,  properly  so  called,  are 
easily  defined.  They  are  Texas,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Mis- 
sissippi, Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  and 
North  Carolina.  The  South  will  also  claim  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  Missouri,  Virginia,  Delaware,  and  Maryland,  and 
will  endeavor  to  prove  its  right  to  the  claim  by  the  fact  of 
the  social  institution  being  the  law  of  the  land  in  those 
States.  Of  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Eastern  Virginia,  I 
have  already  spoken.  Western  Virginia  is,  I  think,  so  lit- 
tle tainted  with  slavery  that,  as  she  stands  even  at  present, 
she  properly  belongs  to  the  West.  As  I  now  write,  the 
struggle  is  going  on  in  Kentucky  and  Missouri.  In  Mis- 
souri the  slave  population  is  barely  more  than  a  tenth  of 
the  whole,  while  in  South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  it  is 
more  than  half.  And,  therefore,  I  venture  to  count  Mis- 
souri among  the  Western  States,  although  slavery  is  still 
the  law  of  the  land  within  its  borders.  It  is  surrounded  on 
three  sides  by  free  States  of  the  West,  and  its  soil,  let  us 
hope,  must  become  free.  Kentucky  I  must  leave  as  doubt- 
ful, though  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  slavery  will  be 
abolished  there  also.  Kentucky,  at  any  rate,  will  never 
throw  in  its  lot  with  the  Southern  States.  As  to  Tennes- 
see, it  seceded  heart  and  soul,  and  I  fear  that  it  must  be 
accounted  as  Southern,  although  the  Northern  army  has 
now,  in  May,  18G2,  possessed  itself  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  State. 

To  the  great  West  remains  an  enormous  territory,  of 
which,  however,  the  population  is  as  yet  but  scanty ;  though 
perhaps  no  portion  of  the  world  has  increased  so  fast  in 
population  as  have  these  Western  States.  The  list  is  as 
follows:  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Min- 
nesota, Iowa,  Kansas;  to  which  I  would  add  Missouri,  and 
probably  the  Western  half  of  Virginia.  We  have  then 
to  account  for  the  two  already  admitted  States  on  the  Paci- 
fic, California  and  Oregon,  and  also  for  the  unadmitted  Ter- 
ritories, Dacotah,  Nebraska,  Washington,  Utah,  New  Mex- 
ico, Colorado,  and  Nevada.  I  should  be  refining  too  much 
for  my  present  very  general  purpose,  if  I  were  to  attempt 
to  marshal  these  huge  but  thinly-populated  regions  in  either 


POPULATION. 


lit 


rank.  Of  California  and  Oregon  it  may  probably  be  said 
that  it  is  their  ambition  to  form  themselves  into  a  separate 
division — a  division  which  may  be  called  the  farther  West. 

I  know  that  all  statistical  statements  are  tedious,  and  I 
believe  that  but  few  readers  believe  them.  I  will,  however, 
venture  to  give  the  populations  of  these  States  in  the  order 
I  have  named  them,  seeing  that  power  in  America  depends 
almost  entirely  on  population.  The  census  of  1860  gave 
the  following  results : — 

In  the  North : 

Maine.  .....  619,000 

New  Hampshire  ....  326,872 

Vermont        .....  325,827 

Massachusetts     ....  1,231,494 

Rhode  Island  .  .  .  .  .174,621 

Connecticut         ....  460,670 

New  York      .....  3,851,563 

Pennsylvania      ....  2,916,018 

New  Jersey  ....  676,034 

Total  ....  10,582,099 


In  the  South,  the  population  of  which  must  be  divided 
into  free  and  slave : 


Free. 

Slave. 

Total. 

Texas 

415,999 

184,956 

600,955 

Louisiana 

.  354,245 

312,186 

666,431 

Arkansas  . 

331,710 

109,065 

440,775 

Mississippi 

.  407,051 

479,607 

886,658 

Alabama  . 

520,444 

435,473 

955,917 

Florida  . 

.  81,885 

63,809 

145,694 

Georgia 

615,366 

467,461 

1,082,827 

South  Carolina 

.  308,186 

407,185 

715,371 

North  Carolina  . 

679,965 

328,377 

1,008,342 

Tennessee 

.  859,578 

287,112 

1,146,690 

Total 

4,574,429 

3,075,231 

7,649,660 

In  the  doubtful 

States : 

Free. 

Slave. 

Total. 

Maryland  . 

646,183 

85,382 

731,565 

Delaware 

.  110,548 

1,805 

112,353 

Virginia 

1,097,373 

495,826 

1,593,199 

Kentucky 

.  920,077 

225,490 

1,145,567 

Total  . 

.  2,774,181 

808,503 

3,582,684 

118 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


In  the  West; 
Ohio 

Indiana  . 
Illinois 
Michigan 
"Wisconsin 
Minnesota 
low  a 
Kansas  . 
Missouri 


Total 


2,377,917 
1,350,802 
1,691,238 
754,291 
763,485 
172,796 
682,002 
143,645 
1,204,214* 


9,140,390 


To  these  must  be  added,  to  make  up  the  population  of 
the  United  States  as  it  stood  in  18G0, — 

The  separate  District  of  Columbia,  in  which  is 
included  Washington,  the  seat  of  the  Federal 


Government  ,           .           .           .           .  75,321 

California    .....  384,770 

Oregon  ......  52,566 

The  Territories  of — 

Dacotah    .....  4,839 

Nebraska      .....  28,892 

Washington        ....  11,624 

Utah   49,000 

New  Mexico        ....  93,024 

Colorado       .....  34,197 

Nevada    .....  6,857 


Total        .....  741,090 

And  thus  the  total  population  may  be  given  as  fol- 
lows : — 

North        .....  10,582,099 

South    .....  7,649,660 

Doubtful    .....  3,582,684 

West     .....  9,140,390 

Outlying  States  and  Territories    .          .  741,090 


Total         ....  31,695,923 


Each  of  the  three  interests  would  consider  itself  wronged 
by  the  division  above  made,  but  the  South  would  probably 
be  the  loudest  in  asserting  its  grievance.   The  South  claims 


*  Of  which  number,  in  Missouri,  115,619  are  slaves. 


POPULATION. 


119 


all  the  slave  States,  and  would  point  to  secession  in  "Vir- 
ginia to  justify  such  claim,  and  would  point  also  to  Mary- 
land and  Baltimore,  declaring  that  secession  would  be  as 
strong  there  as  at  New  Orleans,  if  secession  were  practica- 
ble. Maryland  and  Baltimore  lie  behind  Washington,  and 
are  under  the  heels  of  the  Northern  troops,  so  that  seces- 
sion is  not  practicable  ;  but  the  South  would  say  that  they 
have  seceded  in  heart.  In  this  the  South  would  have  some 
show  of  reason  for  its  assertion ;  but  nevertheless  I  shall 
best  convey  a  true  idea  of  the  position  of  these  States  by 
classing  them  as  doubtful.  When  secession  shall  have  been 
accomplished — if  ever  it  be  accomplished — it  will  hardly  be 
possible  that  they  should  adhere  to  the  South. 

It  will  be  seen  by  the  foregoing  tables  that  the  popula- 
tion of  the  West  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of  the  North,  and 
that  therefore  Western  power  is  almost  as  great  as  North- 
ern. It  is  almost  as  great  already,  and  as  population  in 
the  West  increases  faster  than  it  does  in  the  North,  the  two 
will  soon  be  equalized.  They  are  already  sufficiently  on  a 
par  to  enable  them  to  fight  on  equal  terms,  and  they  will  be 
prepared  for  fighting  —  political  fighting,  if  no  other  —  as 
soon  as  they  have  established  their  supremacy  over  a  com- 
mon enemy. 

While  I  am  on  the  subject  of  population  I  should  ex- 
plain—  though  the  point  is  not  one  which  concerns  the 
present  argument — that  the  numbers  given,  as  they  regard 
the  South,  include  both  the  whites  and  the  blacks,  the  free 
men  and  the  slaves.  The  political  power  of  the  South  is 
of  course  in  the  hands  of  the  white  race  only,  and  the  total 
white  population  should  therefore  be  taken  as  the  number 
indicating  the  Southern  power.  The  political  power  of 
the  South,  however,  as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  North, 
has,  since  the  commencement  of  the  Union,  been  much  in- 
creased by  the  slave  population.  The  slaves  have  been 
taken  into  account  in  determining  the  number  of  represent- 
atives which  should  be  sent  to  Congress  by  each  State. 
That  number  depends  on  the  population,  but  it  was  decided 
in  178t  that  in  counting  up  the  number  of  representatives 
to  which  each  State  should  be  held  to  be  entitled,  five  slaves 
should  represent  three  white  men.  A  Southern  population, 
therefore,  of  five  thousand  free  men  and  five  thousand  slaves 
would  claim  as  many  representatives  as  a  Northern  popula- 
tion of  eight  thousand  free  men,  although  the  voting  would 


120 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


be  confined  to  the  free  population.  This  has  ever  since 
been  the  law  of  the  United  States. 

The  Western  power  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of  the  North, 
and  this  fact,  somewhat  exaggerated  in  terms,  is  a  frequent 
boast  in  the  mouths  of  Western  men.  "  We  ran  Fremont 
for  President,"  they  say,  ''and  had  it  not  been  for  Northern 
men  with  Southern  principles,  we  should  have  put  him  in 
the  White  House  instead  of  the  traitor  Buchanan.  If  that 
had  been  done  there  would  have  been  no  secession."  How 
things  might  have  gone  had  Fremont  been  elected  in  lieu 
of  Buchanan,  I  will  not  pretend  to  say;  but  the  nature  of 
the  argument  shows  the  dilference  that  exists  between 
Northern  and  Western  feeling.  At  the  time  that  I  was  in 
the  West,  General  Fremont  was  the  great  topic  of  public 
interest.  Every  newspaper  was  discussing  his  conduct,  his 
ability  as  a  soldier,  his  energy,  and  his  fate.  At  that  time 
General  McClellan  was  in  command  at  Washington  on  the 
Potomac,  it  being  understood  that  he  held  his  power  directly 
under  the  President,  free  from  the  exercise  of  control  on 
the  part  of  the  veteran  General  Scott,  though  at  that  time 
General  Scott  had  not  actually  resigned  his  position  as  head 
of  the  army.  And  General  Fremont,  who  some  five  years 
before  had  been  "run"  for  President  by  the  Western  States, 
held  another  command  of  nearly  equal  independence  in 
Missouri.  He  had  been  put  over  General  Lyon  in  the 
Western  command,  and  directly  after  this  General  Lyon  had 
fallen  in  battle  at  Springfield,  in  the  first  action  in  which  the 
opposing  armies  were  engaged  in  the  West.  General  Fre- 
mont at  once  proceeded  to  carry  matters  with  a  very  high 
hand.  On  the  30th  of  August,  1861,  he  issued  a  proclama- 
tion by  which  he  declared  martial  law  at  St.  Louis,  the  city 
at  which  he  held  his  headquarters,  and  indeed  throughout 
the  State  of  Missouri  generally.  In  this  proclamation  he 
declared  his  intention  of  exercising  a  severity  beyond  that 
ever  threatened,  as  I  believe,  in  modern  warfare.  He  de- 
fines the  region  presumed  to  be  held  by  his  army  of  occu- 
pation, drawing  his  lines  across  the  State,  and  then  declares 
"that  all  persons  who  shall  be  taken  with  arms  in  their 
hands  within  those  lines  shall  be  tried  by  court-martial,  and 
if  found  guilty  will  be  shot."  He  then  goes  on  to  say  that 
he  will  confiscate  all  the  property  of  persons  in  the  State 
who  shall  have  taken  up  arms  against  the  Union,  or  who 
shall  have  taken  part  with  the  enemies  of  the  Union,  and 


GENERAL  FREMONT.  121 

that  he  will  make  free  all  slaves  belonging  to  such  persons. 
This  proclamation  was  not  approved  at  Washington,  and 
was  modified  by  the  order  of  the  President.  It  was  under- 
stood also  that  he  issued  orders  for  military  expenditure 
which  were  not  recognized  at  Washington,  and  men  began 
to  understand  that  the  army  in  the  West  was  gradually  as- 
suming that  irresponsible  military  position  which,  in  dis- 
turbed countries  and  in  times  of  civil  war,  has  so  frequently 
resulted  in  a  military  dictatorship.  Then  there  arose  a 
clamor  for  the  removal  of  General  Fremont.  A  semi-official 
account  of  his  proceedings,  which  had  reached  Washington 
from  an  officer  under  his  command,  was  made  public,  and 
also  the  correspondence  which  took  place  on  the  subject 
between  the  President  and  General  Fremont's  wife.  The 
officer  in  question  was  thereupon  placed  under  arrest,  but 
immediately  released  by  orders  from  Washington.  He  then 
made  official  complaint  of  his  general,  sending  forward  a 
list  of  charges,  in  which  Fremont  was  accused  of  rashness, 
incompetency,  want  of  fidelity  of  the  interests  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  disobedience  to  orders  from  headquarters. 
After  awhile  the  Secretary  of  War  himself  proceeded  from 
Washington  to  the  quarters  of  General  Fremont  at  St. 
Louis,  and  remained  there  for  a  day  or  two  making,  or  pre- 
tending to  make,  inquiry  into  the  matter.  But  when  he 
returned  he  left  the  General  still  in  command.  During  the 
whole  month  of  October  the  papers  were  occupied  in  de- 
claring in  the  morning  that  General  Fremont  had  been 
recalled  from  his  command,  and  in  the  evening  that  he  was 
to  remain.  In  the  mean  time  they  who  befriended  his  cause, 
and  this  included  the  whole  West,  were  hoping  from  day  to 
day  that  he  would  settle  the  matter  for  himself  and  silence 
his  accusers,  by  some  great  military  success.  General  Price 
held  the  command  opposed  to  him,  and  men  said  that  Fre- 
mont would  sweep  General  Price  and  his  array  down  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  into  the  sea.  But  General  Price 
would  not  be  so  swept,  and  it  began  to  appear  that  a  guer- 
rilla warfare  would  prevail;  that  General  Price,  if  driven 
southward,  would  reappear  behind  the  backs  of  his  pur- 
suers, and  that  General  Fremont  w^ould  not  accomplish  all 
that  was  expected  of  him  with  that  rapidity  for  which  his 
friends  had  given  him  credit.  So  the  newspapers  still  went 
on  waging  the  war,  and  every  morning  General  Fremont 

11 


122 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


was  recalled,  and  every  evening  they  who  had  recalled  him 
were  shown  up  as  having  known  nothing  of  the  matter. 

"  Never  mind ;  he  is  a  pioneer  man,  and  will  do  a'most 
anything  he  pnts  his  hand  to,"  his  friends  in  the  West  still 
said.  "He  understands  the  frontier."  Understanding  the 
frontier  is  a  great  thing  in  Western  America,  across  which 
the  vanguard  of  civilization  continues  to  march  on  in  ad- 
vance from  year  to  year.  "  And  it's  he  that  is  bound  to 
sweep  slavery  from  o'flF  the  face  of  this  continent.  He's  the 
man,  and  he's  about  the  only  man."  I  am  not  qualified  to 
write  the  life  of  General  Fremont,  and  can  at  present  only 
make  this  slight  reference  to  the  details  of  his  romantic 
career.  That  it  has  been  full  of  romance,  and  that  the  man 
himself  is  endued  with  a  singular  energy,  and  a  high,  ro- 
mantic idea  of  what  may  be  done  by  power  and  will,  there 
is  no  doubt.  Five  times  he  has  crossed  the  Continent  of 
North  America  from  Missouri  to  Oregon  and  California, 
enduring  great  hardships  in  the  service  of  advancing  civili- 
zation and  knowledge.  That  he  has  considerable  talent, 
immense  energy,  and  strong  self-confidence,  I  believe.  He 
is  a  frontier  man — one  of  those  who  care  nothing  for  dan- 
ger, and  who  would  dare  anything  with  the  hope  of  accom- 
plishing a  great  career.  But  I  have  never  heard  that  he 
has  shown  any  practical  knowledge  of  high  military  matters. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  a  man  of  this  stamp  is  well  fitted 
to  hold  the  command  of  a  nation's  army  for  great  national 
purposes.  May  it  not  even  be  presumed  that  a  man  of  this 
class  is  of  all  men  the  least  fitted  for  such  a  work  ?  The 
officer  required  should  be  a  man  with  two  specialties  —  a 
specialty  for  military  tactics  and  a  specialty  for  national 
duty.  The  army  in  the  West  was  far  removed  from  head- 
quarters in  Washington,  and  it  was  peculiarly  desirable  that 
the  general  commanding  it  should  be  one  possessing  a  strong 
idea  of  obedience  to  the  control  of  his  own  government. 
Those  frontier  capabilities — that  self-dependent  energy  for 
which  his  friends  gave  Fremont,  and  probably  justly  gave 
him,  such  unlimited  credit — are  exactly  the  qualities  which 
are  most  dangerous  in  such  a  position. 

I  have  endeavored  to  explain  the  circumstances  of  the 
Western  command  in  Missouri  as  they  existed  at  the  time 
when  I  was  in  the  Northwestern  States,  in  order  that  the 
double  action  of  the  North  and  West  may  be  understood. 
I,  of  course,  was  not  in  the  secret  of  any  official  persons ; 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


123 


but  I  could  not  but  feel  sure  that  the  government  in  Wash- 
ington would  have  been  glad  to  have  removed  Fremont  at 
once  from  the  command,  had  they  not  fcare^l  that  by  so 
doing  they  would  have  created  a  schism,  as  it  were,  in  their 
own  camp,  and  have  done  much  to  break  up  the  integrity 
or  oneness  of  Northern  loyalty.  The  Western  people  almost 
to  a  man  desired  abolition.  The  States  there  were  sending 
out  their  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  into  the  army 
with  a  prodigality  as  to  their  only  source  of  wealth  which 
they  hardly  recognized  themselves,  because  this  to  them  was 
a  fight  against  slavery.  The  Western  population  has  been 
increased  to  a  wonderful  degree  by  a  German  infusion — so 
much  so  that  the  Western  towns  appear  to  have  been  peo- 
pled with  Germans.  I  found  regiments  of  volunteers  con- 
sisting wholly  of  Germans.  And  the  Germans  are  all 
abolitionists.  To  all  the  men  of  the  West  the  name  of  Fre- 
mont is  dear.  He  is  their  hero  and  their  Hercules.  He  is 
to  cleanse  the  stables  of  the  Southern  king,  and  turn  the 
waters  of  emancipation  through  the  foul  stalls  of  slavery. 
And  therefore,  though  the  Cabinet  in  Washington  would 
have  been  glad  for  many  reasons  to  have  removed  Fremont 
in  October  last,  it  was  at  first  scared  from  committing  itself 
to  so  strong  a  measure.  At  last,  however,  the  charges  made 
against  him  were  too  fully  substantiated  to  allow  of  their 
being  set  on  one  side  ;  and  early  in  November,  1861,  he  was 
superseded.  I  shall  be  obliged  to  allude  again  to  General 
Fremont's  career  as  I  go  on  with  my  narrative. 

At  this  time  the  North  was  looking  for  a  victory  on  the 
Potomac  ;  but  they  were  no  longer  looking  for  it  with  that 
impatience  which  in  the  summer  had  led  to  the  disgrace  at 
Bull's  Run.  They  had  recognized  the  fact  that  their  troops 
must  be  equipped,  drilled,  and  instructed  ;  and  they  had 
also  recognized  the  perhaps  greater  fact  that  their  enemies 
were  neither  weak,  cowardly,  nor  badly  officered.  I  have 
always  thought  that  the  tone  and  manner  with  which  the 
North  bore  the  defeat  at  Bull's  Run  was  creditable  to  it. 
It  was  never  denied,  never  explained  away,  never  set  down 
as  trifling.  ''We  have  been  whipped,"  v.^as  what  all  North- 
erners said;  "we've  got  an  almighty  whipping,  and  here 
we  are."  I  have  heard  many  Englishmen  complain  of  this 
. — saying  that  the  matter  was  taken  almost  as  a  joke,  that 
no  disgrace  was  felt,  and  that  the  licking  was  owned  by  a 
people  who  ought  never  to  have  allowed  that  they  had  been 


124 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


licked.  To  all  this,  however,  I  demur.  Their  only  chance 
of  speedy  success  consisted  in  their  seeing  and  recognizing 
the  truth.  Had  they  confessed  the  whipping,  and  then  sat 
down  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets — had  they  done  as 
second-rate  boys  at  school  will  do,  declare  that  they  had 
been  hcked,  and  then  feel  that  all  the  trouble  is  over — tliey 
would  indeed  have  been  open  to  reproach.  The  old  mother 
across  the  water  would  in  such  case  have  disowned  her  son. 
But  they  did  the  very  reverse  of  this.  "  I  have  been  whipped," 
Jonathan  said,  and  he  immediately  went  into  training  under 
a  new  system  for  another  fight. 

And  so  all  through  September  and  October  the  great 
armies  on  the  Potomac  rested  comparatively  in  quiet — the 
Northern  forces  drawing  to  themselves  immense  levies. 
The  general  confidence  in  McClellan  was  then  very  great ; 
and  the  cautious  measures  by  which  he  endeavored  to  bring 
his  vast  untrained  body  of  men  under  discipline  were  such 
as  did  at  that  time  recommend  themselves  to  most  military 
critics.  Early  in  September  the  Northern  party  obtained 
a  considerable  advantage  by  taking  the  fort  at  Cape  Hat- 
teras,  in  North  Carolina,  situated  on  one  of  those  long  banks 
which  lie  along  the  shores  of  the  Southern*  States ;  but, 
toward  the  end  of  October,  they  experienced  a  considerable 
reverse  in  an  attack  which  was  made  on  the  secessionists  by 
General  Stone,  and  in  which  Colonel  Baker  was  killed. 
Colonel  Baker  had  been  Senator  for  Oregon,  and  was  well 
known  as  an  orator.  Taking  all  things  together,  however, 
nothing  material  had  been  done  up  to  the  end  of  October ; 
and  at  that  time  Northern  men  were  waiting — not  perhaps 
impatiently,  considering  the  great  hopes  and  perhaps  great 
fears  which  filled  their  hearts,  but  with  eager  expectation — 
for  some  event  of  which  they  might  talk  with  pride. 

The  man  to  whom  they  had  trusted  all  their  hopes  was 
young  for  so  great  a  command.  I  think  that,  at  this  time, 
(October,  1861,)  General  McClellan  was  not  yet  thirty-five. 
He  had  served,  early  in  life,  in  the  Mexican  war,  having 
come  originally  from  Pennsylvania,  and  having  been  edu- 
cated at  the  military  college  at  West  Point.  During  our 
war  with  Russia  he  was  sent  to  the  Crimea  by  his  own  gov- 
ernment, in  conjunction  with  two  other  oflicers  of  the  United 
States  army,  that  they  might  learn  all  that  was  to  be  learned 
there  as  to  military  tactics,  and  report  especially  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  fortifications  were  made  and  attacked.  I 


THE  WEST  AND  THE  NORTH. 


125 


have  been  informed  that  a  very  able  report  was  sent  in  by 
them  to  the  government  on  their  return,  and  that  this  was 
drawn  up  by  McCIellan.  But  in  America  a  man  is  not  only 
a  soldier,  or  always  a  soldier,  nor  is  he  always  a  clergyman 
if  once  a  clergyman  :  he  takes  a  spell  at  anything  suitable 
that  may  be  going.  And  in  this  way  McCIellan  was,  for 
some  years,  engaged  on  the  Central  Illinois  Railway,  and 
was  for  a  considerable  time  the  head  manager  of  that  con- 
cern. We  all  know  with  what  suddenness  he  rose  to  the 
highest  command  in  the  army  immediately  after  the  defeat 
at  Bull's  Run. 

1  have  endeavored  to  describe  what  were  the  feelings  of 
the  West  in  the  autumn  of  1861  with  regard  to  the  war. 
The  excitement  and  eagerness  there  were  very  great,  and 
they  were  perhaps  as  great  in  the  North.  But  in  the  North 
the  matter  seemed  to  me  to  be  regarded  from  a  different 
point  of  view.  As  a  rule,  the  men  of  the  North  are  not 
abolitionists.  It  is  quite  certain  that  they  were  not  so  be- 
fore secession  began.  They  hate  slavery  as  we  in  England 
hate  it ;  but  they  are  aware,  as  also  are  we,  that  the  dispo- 
sition of  four  million  of  black  men  and  women  forms  a  ques- 
tion which  cannot  be  solved  by  the  chivalry  of  any  modern 
Orlando.  The  property  invested  in  these  four  million  slaves 
forms  the  entire  wealth  of  the  South.  If  they  could  be 
wafted  by  a  philanthropic  breeze  back  to  the  shores  of  Af- 
rica— a  breeze  of  which  the  philanthropy  would  certainly 
not  be  appreciated  by  those  so  wafted — the  South  would  be 
a  wilderness.  The  subject  is  one  as  full  of  difficulty  as  any 
with  which  the  politicians  of  these  days  are  tormented.  The 
Northerners  fully  appreciate  this,  and,  as  a  rule,  are  not  ab- 
olitionists in  the  Western  sense  of  the  word.  To  them  the 
war  is  recommended  by  precisely  those  feelings  which  ani- 
mated us  when  we  fought  for  our  colonies — when  we  strove 
to  put  down  American  independence.  Secession  is  rebellion 
against  the  government,  and  is  all  the  more  bitter  to  the 
North  because  that  rebelhon  broke  out  at  the  first  moment 
of  Northern  ascendency.  "We  submitted,"  the  North  says, 
"  to  Southern  Presidents,  and  Southern  statesmen,  and 
Southern  councils,  because  we  obeyed  the  vote  of  the  peo- 
ple. But  as  to  you — the  voice  of  the  people  is  nothing  in 
your  estimation  !  At  the  first  moment  in  which  the  popular 
vote  places  at  Washington  a  President  with  Northern  feel- 
ings, you  rebel.     We  submitted  in  your  days ;  and,  by 

11* 


126 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Heaven  I  you  shall  submit  in  ours.  We  submitted  loyally, 
through  love  of  the  law  and  the  Constitution.  You  have 
disregarded  the  law  and  thrown  over  the  Constitution.  But 
you  shall  be  made  to  submit,  as  a  child  is  made  to  submit 
to  its  governor." 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  on  commercial  questions 
the  North  and  the  West  are  divided.  The  Morrill  tariff  is 
as  odious  to  the  West  as  it  is  to  the  South.  The  South 
and  West  are  both  agricultural  productive  regions,  desirous 
of  sending  cotton  and  corn  to  foreign  countries,  and  of  re- 
ceiving back  foreign  manufactures  on  the  best  terms.  But 
the  North  is  a  manufacturing  country — a  poor  manufactur- 
ing country  as  regards  excellence  of  manufacture  —  and 
therefore  the  more  anxious  to  foster  its  own  growth  by 
protective  laws.  The  Morrill  tariff  is  very  injurious  to  the 
West,  and  is  odious  there.  I  might  add  that  its  folly  has 
already  been  so  far  recognized  even  in  the  North  as  to  make 
it  very  generally  odious  there  also. 

So  much  I  have  said  endeavoring  to  make  it  understood 
how  far  the  North  and  West  were  united  in  feeling  against 
the  South  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  and  how  far  there  existed 
between  them  a  diversity  of  interests. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

FROM  NIAGARA  TO  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 

From  Niagara  we  went  by  the  Canada  Great  Western 
Bailway  to  Detroit,  the  big  city  of  Michigan.  It  is  an 
American  institution  that  the  States  should  have  a  com- 
mercial capital  —  or  what  I  call  their  big  city  —  as  well 
as  a  political  capital,  which  may,  as  a  rule,  be  called  the 
State's  central  city.  The  object  in  choosing  the  political 
capital  is  average  nearness  of  approach  from  the  various 
confines  of  the  State  ;  but  commerce  submits  to  no  such 
Procrustean  laws  in  selecting  her  capitals,  and  consequently 
she  has  placed  Detroit  on  the  borders  of  Michigan,  on  the 
shore  of  the  neck  of  water  which  joins  Lake  Huron  to  Lake 


RAILWAY  BEDS. 


127 


Erie,  through  which  all  the  trade  must  flow  which  comes 
down  from  Lakes  Michigan,  Superior,  and  Huron  on  its 
way  to  the  Eastern  States  and  to  Europe.  We  had  thought 
of  going  from  Buffalo  across  Lake  Erie  to  Detroit ;  but  we 
found  that  the  better  class  of  steamers  had  been  taken  off 
the  waters  for  the  winter.  And  we  also  found  that  naviga- 
tion among  these  lakes  is  a  mistake  whenever  the  necessary 
journey  can  be  taken  by  railway.  Their  waters  are  by  no 
means  smooth,  and  then  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen.  I  do 
not  know  whether  others  may  have  a  feeling,  almost  instinct- 
ive, that  lake  navigation  must  be  pleasant — that  lakes  must 
of  necessity  be  beautiful.  I  have  such  a  feeling,  but  not 
now  so  strongly  as  formerly.  Such  an  idea  should  be  kept 
for  use  in  Europe,  and  never  brought  over  to  America  with 
other  traveling  gear.  The  lakes  in  America  are  cold,  cum- 
brous, uncouth,  and  uninteresting — intended  by  nature  for 
the  conveyance  of  cereal  produce,  but  not  for  the  comfort 
of  traveling  men  and  women.  So  we  gave  up  our  plan  of 
traversing  the  lake,  and,  passing  back  into  Canada  by  the 
suspension  bridge  at  Niagara,  we  reached  the  Detroit  River 
at  Windsor  by  the  Great  Western  line,  and  passed  thence 
by  the  ferry  into  the  City  of  Detroit. 

In  making  this  journey  at  night  we  introduced  ourselves 
to  the  thoroughly  American  institution  of  sleeping-cars — • 
that  is,  of  cars  in  which  beds  are  made  up  for  travelers. 
The  traveler  may  have  a  whole  bed,  or  half  a  bed,  or  no 
bed  at  all,  as  he  pleases,  paying  a  dollar  or  half  a  dollar 
extra  should  he  choose  the  partial  or  full  fruition  of  a 
couch.  I  confess  I  have  always  taken  a  delight  in  seeing 
these  beds  made  up,  and  consider  that  the  operations  of  the 
change  are  generally  as  well  executed  as  the  manoeuvres  of 
any  pantomime  at  Drury  Lane.  The  work  is  usually  done 
by  negroes  or  colored  men,  and  the  domestic  negroes  of 
America  are  always  light-handed  and  adroit.  The  nature 
of  an  American  car  is  no  doubt  known  to  all  men.  It  looks 
as  far  removed  from  all  bed-room  accommodation  as  the 
baker's  barrow  does  from  the  steam  engine  into  which  it  is 
to  be  converted  by  Harlequin's  wand.  But  the  negro  goes 
to  work  much  more  quietly  than  the  Harlequin ;  and  for 
every  four  seats  in  the  railway  car  he  builds  up  four  beds  al- 
most as  quickly  as  the  hero  of  the  pantomime  goes  through 
/  his  performance.  The  great  glory  of  the  Americans  is  in 
their  wondrous  contrivances — in  their  patent  remedies  for 


128 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  usually  troablous  operations  of  life.  In  their  huge  ho- 
tels all  the  bell  ropes  of  each  house  ring  on  one  bell  only ; 
but  a  patent  indicator  discloses  a  number,  and  the  wherea- 
bouts of  the  ringer  is  shown.  One  fire  heats  every  room, 
passage,  hall,  and  cupboard,  and  does  it  so  effectually  that 
the  inhabitants  are  all  but  stifled.  Soda-water  bottles  open 
themselves  without  any  trouble  of  wire  or  strings.  Men  and 
women  go  up  and  down  stairs  without  motive  power  of  their 
own.  Hot  and  cold  water  are  laid  on  to  all  the  chambers ; 
though  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  water  from  both  taps 
is  boiling,  and  that,  when  once  turned  on,  it  cannot  be 
turned  oft'  again  by  any  human  energy.  Everything  is 
done  by  a  new  and  wonderful  patent  contrivance  ;  and  of 
all  their  wonderful  contrivances,  that  of  their  railroad  beds 
is  by  no  means  the  least.  For  every  four  seats  the  negro 
builds  up  four  beds — that  is,  four  half  beds,  or  accommoda- 
tion for  four  persons.  Two  are  supposed  to  be  below,  on 
the  level  of  the  ordinary  four  seats,  and  two  up  above  on 
shelves  which  are  let  down  from  the  roof.  Mattresses  slip 
out  from  one  nook  and  pillows  from  another.  Blankets  are 
added,  and  the  bed  is  ready.  Any  over-particular  individ- 
ual— an  islander,  for  instance,  who  hugs  his  chains — will 
generally  prefer  to  pay  the  dollar  for  the  double  accommo- 
dation. Looking  at  the  bed  in  the  light  of  a  bed — taking, 
as  it  were,  an  abstract  view  of  it — or  comparing  it  with 
some  other  bed  or  beds  with  which  the  occupant  may  have 
acquaintance,  I  cannot  say  that  it  is  in  all  respects  perfect. 
But  distances  are  long  in  America ;  and  he  who  declines  to 
travel  by  night  will  lose  very  much  time.  He  who  does  so 
travel  will  find  the  railway  bed  a  great  relief.  I  must  con- 
fess that  the  feeling  of  dirt,  on  the  following  morning,  is 
rather  oppressive. 

From  Windsor,  on  the  Canada  side,  we  passed  over  to 
Detroit,  in  the  State  of  Michigan,  by  a  steam  ferry.  But 
ferries  in  England  and  ferries  in  America  are  very  different. 
Here,  on  this  Detroit  ferry,  some  hundred  of  passengers, 
who  were  going  forward  from  the  other  side  without  delay, 
at  once  sat  down  to  breakfast.  I  may  as  well  explain  the 
way  in  which  disposition  is  made  of  one's  luggage  as  one 
takes  these  long  journeys.  The  traveler,  when  he  starts, 
has  his  baggage  checked.  He  abandons  his  trunk — gener- 
ally a  box,  studded  with  nails,  as  long  as  a  coffin  and  as 
high  as  a  linen  chest — and,  in  return  for  this,  he  receives  an 


RAILWAY  LUGGAGE. 


129 


iron  ticket  with  a  number  on  it.  As  he  approaches  the  end 
of  his  first  installment  of  travel,  and  while  tlie  engine  is  still 
working  its  hardest,  a  man  comes  up  to  him,  bearing  with 
him,  suspended  on  a  circular  bar,  an  infinite  variety  of  other 
checks.  The  traveler  confides  to  this  man  his  wishes,  and, 
if  he  be  going  farther  without  delay,  surrenders  his  check 
and  receives  a  counter-check  in  return.  Then,  while  the 
train  is  still  in  motion,  the  new  destiny  of  the  trunk  is  im- 
parted to  it*  But  another  man,  with  another  set  of  checks, 
also  comes  the  way,  walking  leisurely  through  the  train  as 
he  performs  his  work.  This  is  the  minister  of  the  hotel- 
omnibus  institution.  His  business  is  with  those  who  do  not 
travel  beyond  the  next  terminus.  To  him,  if  such  be  your 
intention,  you  make  your  confidence,  giving  up  your  tallies, 
and  taking  other  tallies  by  way  of  receipt ;  and  your  lug- 
gage is  afterward  found  by  you  in  the  hall  of  your  hotel. 
There  is  undoubtedly  very  much  of  comfort  in  this;  and  the 
mind  of  the  traveler  is  lost  in  amazement  as  he  thinks  of 
the  futile  efforts  with  which  he  would  struggle  to  regain  his 
luggage  were  there  no  such  arrangement.  Enormous  piles 
of  boxes  are  disclosed  on  the  platform  at  all  the  larger  sta- 
tions, the  numbers  of  which  are  roared  forth  with  quick 
voice  by  some  two  or  three  railway  denizens  at  once.  A 
modest  English  voyager,  with  six  or  seven  small  packages, 
would  stand  no  chance  of  getting  anything  if  he  were  left 
to  his  own  devices.  As  it  is,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the 
thing  is  well  done.  I  have  had  my  desk  with  all  my  money 
in  it  lost  for  a  day,  and  my  black  leather  bag  was  on  one 
occasion  sent  back  over  the  line.  They,  however,  were  re- 
covered ;  and,  on  the  whole,  I  feel  grateful  to  the  check 
system  of  the  American  railways.  And  then,  too,  one  never 
hears  of  extra  luggage.  Of  weight  they  are  quite  regard- 
less. On  two  or  three  occasions  an  overwrought  official 
has  muttered  between  his  teeth  that  ten  packages  were  a 
great  many,  and  that  some  of  those  ''light  fixings"  might 
have  been  made  up  into  one.  And  when  I  came  to  under- 
stand that  the  number  of  every  check  was  entered  in  a  book, 
and  re-entered  at  every  change,  I  did  whisper  to  my  wife 
that  she  ought  to  do  without  a  bonnet  box.  The  ten,  how- 
ever, went  on,  and  were  always  duly  protected.  I  must 
add,  however,  that  articles  requiring  tender  treatment  will 
sometimes  reappear  a  little  the  worse  from  the  hardships  of 
their  journey. 


130 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  have  not  much  to  say  of  Detroit — not  much,  that  is, 
beyond  what  I  have  to  say  of  all  the  North.  It  is  a  large, 
well-built,  half-finished  city,  lying  on  a  convenient  water- 
way, and  spreading  itself  out  with  promises  of  a  wide  and 
still  wider  prosperity.  It  has  about  it  perhaps  as  little  of 
intrinsic  interest  as  any  of  those  large  Western  towns  which 
I  visited.  It  is  not  so  pleasant  as  Milwaukee,  nor  so  pic- 
turesque as  St.  Paul,  nor  so  grand  as  Chicago,  nor  so  civil- 
ized as  Cleveland,  nor  so  busy  as  Buffalo.  Indeed,  Detroit  is 
neither  pleasant  nor  picturesque  at  all.  I  will  not  say  that 
it  is  uncivilized  ;  but  it  has  a  harsh,  crude,  unprepossessing 
appearance.  It  has  some  10,000  inhabitants,  and  good  ac- 
commodation for  shipping.  It  was  doing  an  enormous  busi- 
ness before  the  war  began,  and,  when  these  troublous  times 
are  over,  will  no  doubt  again  go  ahead.  I  do  not,  however, 
think  it  well  to  recommend  any  Englishman  to  make  a  spe- 
cial visit  to  Detroit  who  may  be  wholly  uncommercial  in  his 
views,  and  travel  in  search  of  that  which  is  either  beautiful 
or  interesting. 

From  Detroit  we  continued  our  course  westward  across 
the  State  of  Michigan,  through  a  country  that  was  abso- 
lutely wild  till  the  railway  pierced  it.  Yery  much  of  it  is 
still  absolutely  wild.  For  miles  upon  miles  the  road  passes 
the  untouched  forest,  showing  that  even  in  Michigan  the 
great  work  of  civilization  has  hardly  more  than  been  com- 
menced. As  one  thinks  of  the  all  but  countless  population 
which  is,  before  long,  to  be  fed  from  these  regions — of  the 
cities  which  will  grow  here,  and  of  the  amount  of  govern- 
ment which  in  due  time  will  be  required — one  can  hardly 
fail  to  feel  that  the  division  of  the  United  States  into  sepa- 
rate nationalities  is  merely  a  part  of  the  ordained  work  of 
creation  as  arranged  for  the  well-being  of  mankind.  The 
States  already  boast  of  thirty  millions  of  inhabitants — not 
of  unnoticed  and  unnoticeable  beings  requiring  little,  know- 
ing little,  and  doing  little,  such  as  are  the  Eastern  hordes, 
which  may  be  counted  by  tens  of  millions,  but  of  men  and 
women  who  talk  loudly  and  are  ambitious,  who  eat  beef, 
who  read  and  write,  and  understand  the  dignity  of  manhood. 
But  these  thirty  millions  are  as  nothing  to  the  crowds  which 
will  grow  sleek,  and  talk  loudly,  and  become  aggressive  on 
these  wheat  and  meat  producing  levels.  The  country  is  as 
yet  but  touched  by  the  pioneering  hand  of  population.  In 
the  old  countries,  agriculture,  following  on  the  heels  of  pas- 


GRAND  HAVEN. 


131 


toral,  patriarchal  life,  preceded  the  birth  of  cities.  But  in 
this  young  world  the  cities  have  come  lirst.  The  new  Ja- 
sons,  blessed  with  the  experience  of  the  Old-World  adven- 
turers, have  gone  forth  in  search  of  their  golden  fleeces, 
armed  with  all  that  the  science  and  skill  of  the  East  had  as 
yet  produced,  and,  in  settling  up  their  new  Colchis,  have 
begun  by  the  erection  of  first-class  hotels  and  the  fabrica- 
tion of  railroads.  Let  the  Old  World  bid  them  God  speed 
in  their  worl^.  Only  it  would  be  well  if  they  could  be  brought 
to  acknowledge  from  whence  they  have  learned  all  that  they 
know. 

Our  route  lay  right  across  the  State  to  a  place  called 
Grand  Haven,  on  Lake  Michigan,  from  whence  we  were  to 
take  boat  for  Milwaukee,  a  town  in  Wisconsin,  on  the  op- 
posite or  western  shore  of  the  lake.  Michigan  is  sometimes 
called  the  Peninsular  State,  from  the  fact  that  the  main  part 
of  its  territory  is  surrounded  by  Lakes  Michigan  and  Huron, 
by  the  little  Lake  St.  Clair  and  by  Lake  Erie.  It  juts  out 
to  the  northward  from  the  main  land  of  Indiana  and  Ohio, 
and  is  circumnavigable  on  the  east,  north,  and  west.  These 
particulars,  however,  refer  to  a  part  of  the  State  only ;  for 
a  portion  of  it  lies  on  the  other  side  of  Lake  Michigan,  be- 
tween that  and  Lake  Superior.  I  doubt  whether  any  large 
inland  territory  in  the  world  is  blessed  with  such  facilities 
of  water  carriage. 

On  arriving  at  Grand  Haven  we  found  that  there  had 
been  a  storm  on  the  lake,  and  that  the  passengers  from  the 
trains  of  the  preceding  day  were  still  remaining  there,  wait- 
ing to  be  carried  over  to  Milwaukee.  The  water,  however 
— or  the  sea,  as  they  all  call  it — was  still  very  high,  and  the 
captain  declared  his  intention  of  remaining  there  that  night ; 
whereupon  all  our  fellow-travelers  huddled  themselves  into 
the  great  lake  steamboat,  and  proceeded  to  carry  on  life 
there  as  though  they  were  quite  at  home.  The  men  took 
themselves  to  the  bar-room,  and  smoked  cigars  and  talked 
about  the  war  with  their  feet  upon  the  counter ;  and  the 
women  got  themselves  into  rocking-chairs  in  the  saloon,  and 
sat  there  listless  and  silent,  but  not  more  listless  and  silent 
than  they  usually  are  in  the  big  drawing-rooms  of  the  big 
hotels.  There  was  supper  there  precisely  at  six  o'clock — 
beef-steaks,  and  tea,  and  apple  jam,  and  hot  cakes,  and  light 
fixings,  to  all  which  luxuries  an  American  deems  himself 
entitled,  let  him  have  to  seek  his  meal  where  he  may.  And 


132 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  was  soon  informed,  with  considerable  energy,  that  let  the 
boat  be  kept  there  as  long  as  it  might  by  stress  of  weather, 
the  beef-steaks  and  apple  jam,  light  fixings  and  heavy  fixings, 
must  be  supplied  at  the  cost  of  the  owners  of  the  ship. 
"Your  first  supper  you  pay  for,"  my  informant  told  me, 
"because  you  eat  that  on  your  own  account.  What  you 
consume  after  that  comes  of  their  doing,  because  they  don't 
start ;  and  if  it's  three  meals  a  day  for  a  week,  it's  their 
look  out."  It  occurred  to  me  that,  under  such  circum- 
stances, a  captain  would  be  very  apt  to  sail  either  in  foul 
weather  or  in  fair. 

It  was  a  bright  moonlight  night — moonlight  such  as  we 
rarely  have  in  England — and  I  started  oif  by  myself  for  a 
walk,  that  I  might  see  of  what  nature  were  the  environs  of 
Grand  Haven.  A  more  melancholy  place  I  never  beheld. 
The  town  of  Grand  Haven  itself  is  placed  on  the  opposite 
side  of  a  creek,  and  was  to  .be  reached  by  a  ferry.  On  our 
side,  to  which  the  railway  came  and  from  which  the  boat 
was  to  sail,  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  sand  hills, 
which  stretched  away  for  miles  along  the  shore  of  the  lake. 
There  were  great  sand  mountains  and  sand  valleys,  on  the 
surface  of  which  were  scattered  the  debris  of  dead  trees, 
scattered  logs  white  with  age,  and  boughs  half  buried  be- 
neath the  sand.  Grand  Haven  itself  is  but  a  poor  place, 
not  having  succeeded  in  catching  much  of  the  commerce 
which  comes  across  the  lake  from  Wisconsin,  and  which 
takes  itself  on  Eastward  by  the  railway.  Altogether,  it  is 
a  dreary  place,  such  as  might  break  a  man's  heart  should 
he  find  that  inexorable  fate  required  him  there  to  pitch  his 
tent. 

On  my  return  I  went  down  into  the  bar-room  of  the 
steamer,  put  my  feet  upon  the  counter,  lit  my  cigar,  and 
struck  into  the  debate  then  proceeding  on  the  subject  of 
the  war.  I  was  getting  West,  and  General  Fremont  was 
the  hero  of  the  hour.  "  He's  a  frontier  man,  and  that's 
what  we  want.  I  guess  he'll  about  go  through.  Yes,' sir." 
"As  for  relieving  General  Fre-mont,"  (with  the  accent  al- 
ways strongly  on  the  "mont,")  "I  guess  you  may  as  well 
talk  of  relieving  the  whole  West.  They  won't  meddle  with 
Fre-mont.  They  are  beginning  to  know  in  Washington 
what  stuff  he's  made  of."  "Why,  sir,  there  are  50,000  men 
in  these  States  who  will  follow  Fre-mont,  who  would  not 
stir  a  foot  after  any  other  man."   From  which,  and  the  like 


MILWAUKEE. 


133 


of  it  in  many  other  places,  I  began  to  understand  how  dif- 
ficult was  the  task  which  the  statesmen  in  Washington  had 
in  hand. 

I  received  no  pecuniary  advantage  whatever  from  that 
law  as  to  the  steamboat  meals  which  my  new  friend  had  re- 
vealed to  me.  For  my  one  supper  of  course  I  paid,  look- 
ing forward  to  any  amount  of  subsequent  gratuitous  provi- 
sions. But  in  the  course  of  the  night  the  ship  sailed,  and 
we  found  ourselves  at  Milwaukee  in  time  for  breakfast  on 
the  following  morning. 

Milwaukee  is  a  pleasant  town,  a  very  pleasant  town,  con- 
taining 45,000  inhabitants.  How  many  of  my  readers  can 
boast  that  they  know  anything  of  Milwaukee,  or  even  have 
heard  of  it?  To  me  its  name  was  unknown  until  I  saw  it 
on  huge  railway  placards  stuck  up  in  the  smoking-rooms 
and  lounging  halls  of  all  American  hotels.  It  is  the  big 
town  of  Wisconsin,  whereas  Madison  is  the  capital.  It 
stands  immediately  on  the  western  shore  of  Lake  Michigan, 
and  is  very  pleasant.  Why  it  should  be  so,  and  why  Detroit 
should  be  the  contrary,  I  can  hardly  tell;  only  I  think  that 
the  same  verdict  would  be  given  by  any  English  tourist. 
It  must  be  always  borne  in  mind  that  10,000  or  40,000  in- 
habitants in  an  American  town,  and  especially  in  any  new 
Western  town,  is  a  number  which  means  much  more  than 
would  be  implied  by  any  similar  number  as  to  an  old  town 
in  Europe.  Such  a  population  in  America  consumes  double 
the  amount  of  beef  which  it  would  in  England,  wears  double 
the  amount  of  clothes,  and  demands  double  as  much  of  the 
comforts  of  life.  If  a  census  could  be  taken  of  the  watches, 
it  would  be  found,  I  take  it,  that  the  American  population 
possessed  among  them  nearly  double  as  many  as  would  the 
English;  and  I  fear  also  that  it  would  be  found  that  many 
more  of  the  Americans  were  readers  and  writers  by  habit. 
In  any  large  town  in  England  it  is  probable  that  a  higher 
excellence  of  education  would  be  found  than  in  Milwaukee, 
and  also  a  style  of  life  into  which  more  of  refinement  and 
more  of  luxury  had  found  its  way.  But  the  general  level 
of  these  things,  of  material  and  intellectual  well-being — of 
beef,  that  is,  and  book  learning  —  is  no  doubt  infinitely 
higher  in  a  new  American  than  in  an  old  European  town. 
Such  an  animal  as  a  beggar  is  as  much  unknown  as  a  mas- 
todon. Men  out  of  work  and  in  want  are  almost  unknown. 
I  do  not  say  that  there  are  none  of  the  hardships  of  life — 

12 


134 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


and  to  thera  I  will  come  by-and-by — but  want  is  not  known 
as  a  hardship  in  these  towns,  nor  is  that  dense  ignorance  in 
which  so  large  a  proportion  of  our  town  populations  is  still 
steeped.  And  then  the  town  of  40,000  inhabitants  is 
spread  over  a  surface  which  would  sulfice  in  England  for  a 
city  of  four  times  the  size.  Our  towns  in  England — and  the 
towns,  indeed,  of  Europe  generally  —  have  been  built  as 
they  have  been  wanted.  No  aspiring  ambition  as  to  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  people  warmed  the  bosoms  of  their 
first  founders.  Two  or  three  dozen  men  required  habita- 
tions in  the  same  locality,  and  clustered  them  together 
closely.  Many  such  have  failed  and  died  out  of  the  world's 
notice.  Others  have  thriven,  and  houses  have  been  packed 
on  to  houses,  till  London  and  Manchester,  Dublin  and  Glas- 
gow have  been  produced.  Poor  men  have  built,  or  have 
had  built  for  them,  wretched  lanes,  and  rich  men  have  erected 
grand  palaces.  From  the  nature  of  their  beginnings  such 
has,  of  necessity,  been  the  manner  of  their  creation.  But 
in  America,  and  especially  in  Western  America,  there  has 
been  no  such  necessity  and  there  is  no  such  result.  The 
founders  of  cities  have  had  the  experience  of  the  world  be- 
fore them.  They  have  known  of  sanitary  laws  as  they 
began.  That  sewerage,  and  water,  and  gas,  and  good  air 
would  be  needed  for  a  thriving  community  has  been  to  them 
as  much  a  matter  of  fact  as  are  the  well-understood  combi- 
nations between  timber  and  nails,  and  bricks  and  mortar. 
They  have  known  that  water  carriage  is  almost  a  necessity 
for  commercial  success,  and  have  chosen  their  sites  accord- 
ingly. Broad  streets  cost  as  little,  while  land  by  the  foot 
is  not  as  yet  of  value  to  be  regarded,  as  those  which  are 
narrow;  and  therefore  the  sites  of  towns  have  been  pre- 
pared with  noble  avenues  and  imposing  streets.  A  city  at 
its  commencement  is  laid  out  with  an  intention  that  it  shall 
be  populous.  The  houses  are  not  all  built  at  once,  but  there 
are  the  places  allocated  for  them.  The  streets  are  not  made, 
but  there  are  the  spaces.  Many  an  abortive  attempt  at 
municipal  greatness  has  so  been  made  and  then  all  but 
abandoned.  There  are  wretched  villages,  with  huge,  strag- 
gling parallel  ways,  which  will  never  grow  into  towns. 
They  are  the  failures — failures  in  which  the  pioneers  of 
civilization,  frontier  men  as  they  call  themselves,  have  lost 
their  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars.  But  when  the  success 
comes,  when  the  happy  hit  has  been  made,  and  the  ways  of 


AMERICAN  CITIES. 


135 


commerce  have  been  truly  foreseen  with  a  cunning  eye,  then 
a  great  and  prosperous  city  springs  up,'  ready  made  as  it 
were,  from  the  earth.  Such  a  town  is  Milwaukee,  now  con- 
taining 45,000  inhabitants,  but  with  room  apparently  for 
double  that  number;  with  room  for  four  times  that  number, 
were  men  packed  as  closely  there  as  they  are  with  us. 

In  the  principal  business  streets  of  all  these  towns  one 
sees  vast  buildings.  They  are  usually  called  blocks,  and 
are  often  so  denominated  in  large  letters  on  their  front,  as 
Portland  Block,  Devereux  Block,  Buel's  Block.  Such  a 
block  may  face  to  two,  three,  or  even  four  streets,  and,  as  I 
presume,  has  generally  been  a  matter  of  one  special  specu- 
lation. It  may  be  divided  into  separate  houses,  or  kept  for 
a  single  purpose,  such  as  that  of  a  hotel,  or  grouped  into 
shops  below,  and  into  various  sets  of  chambers  above.  I 
have  had  occasion  in  various  towns  to  mount  the  stairs 
within  these  blocks,  and  have  generally  found  some  portion 
of  them  vacant — have  sometimes  found  the  greater  portion 
of  them  vacant.  Men  build  on  an  enormous  scale,  three 
times,  ten  times  as  much  as  is  wanted.  The  only  measure 
of  size  is  an  increase  on  what  men  have  built  before.  Mon- 
roe P.  Jones,  the  speculator,  is  very  probably  ruined,  and 
then  begins  the  world  again,  nothing  daunted.  But  Jones's 
block  remains,  and  gives  to  the  city  in  its  aggregate  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  wealth.  Or  the  block  becomes  at  once  of 
service  and  finds  tenants.  In  which  case  Jones  probably 
sells  it,  and  immediately  builds  two  others  twice  as  big. 
That  Monroe  P.  Jones  will  encounter  ruin  is  almost  a  mat- 
ter of  course;  but  then  he  is  none  the  worse  for  being 
ruined.  It  hardly  makes  him  unhappy.  He  is  greedy  of 
dollars  with  a  terrible  covetousness ;  but  he  is  greedy  in 
order  that  he  may  speculate  more  widely.  He  would  sooner 
have  built  Jones's  tenth  block,  with  a  prospect  of  complet- 
ing a  twentieth,  than  settle  himself  down  at  rest  for  life  as 
the  owner  of  a  Chatsworth  or  a  Woburn.  As  for  his  chil- 
dren, he  has  no  desire  of  leaving  them  money.  Let  the 
girls  marry.  And  for  the  boys — for  them  it  will  be  good  to 
begin  as  he  begun.  If  they  cannot  build  blocks  for  them- 
selves, let  them  earn  their  bread  in  the  blocks  of  other  men. 
So  Monroe  P.  Jones,  with  his  million  of  dollars  accom- 
plished, advances  on  to  a  new  frontier,  goes  to  work  again 
on  a  new  city,  and  loses  it  all.  As  an  individual  I  differ 
very  much  from  Monroe  P.  Jones.    The  first  block  accom- 


13G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


plished,  with  an  adequate  rent  accruing  to  me  as  the  builder, 
I  fancy  that  I  should  never  try  a  second.  But  Jones  is 
undoubtedly  the  man  for  the  West.  It  is  that  love  of 
money  to  come,  joined  to  a  strong  disregard  for  money 
made,  which  constitutes  the  vigorous  frontier  mind,  the  true 
pioneering  organization.  Monroe  P.  Jones  would  be  a 
great  man  to  all  posterity  if  only  he  had  a  poet  to  sing  of 
his  valor. 

It  may  be  imagined  how  large  in  proportion  to  its  inhab- 
itants will  be  a  town  which  spreads  itself  in  this  way. 
There  are  great  houses  left  untenanted,  and  great  gaps  left 
unfilled.  But  if  the  place  be  successful,  if  it  promise  suc- 
cess, it  will  be  seen  at  once  that  there  is  life  all  through  it. 
Omnibuses,  or  street  cars  working  on  rails,  run  hither  and 
thither.  The  shops  that  have  been  opened  are  well  filled. 
The  great  hotels  are  thronged.  The  quays  are  crowded 
with  vessels,  and  a  general  feeling  of  progress  pervades  the 
place.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  whether  or  no  an  American 
town  is  going  ahead.  The  days  of  my  visit  to  Milwaukee 
were  days  of  civil  war  and  national  trouble,  but  in  spite  of 
civil  war  and  national  trouble  Milwaukee  looked  healthy. 

I  have  said  that  there  was  but  little  poverty — little  to  be 
seen  of  real  want  in  these  thriving  towns — but  that  they 
who  labored  in  them  had  nevertheless  their  own  hardships. 
This  is  so.  I  would  not  have  any  man  believe  that  he  can 
take  himself  to  the  Western  States  of  America — to  those 
States  of  which  I  am  now  speaking — Michigan,  Wisconsin, 
Minnesota,  Iowa,  or  Illinois,  and  there  by  industry  escape 
the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir.  The  laboring  Irish  in  these 
towns  eat  meat  seven  days  a  week,  but  I  have  met  many  a 
laboring  Irishman  among  them  who  has  wished  himself 
back  in  his  old  cabin.  Industry  is  a  good  thing,  and  there 
is  no  bread  so  sweet  as  that  which  is  eaten  in  the  sweat  of 
a  man's  brow ;  but  labor  carried  to  excess  wearies  the  mind 
as  well  as  body,  and  the  sweat  that  is  ever  running  makes 
the  bread  bitter.  There  is,  I  think,  no  task-master  over 
free  labor  so  exacting  as  an  American.  He  knows  nothing 
of  hours,  and  seems  to  have  that  idea  of  a  man  which  a 
lady  always  has  of  a  horse.  He  thinks  that  he  will  go  for- 
ever. I  wish  those  masons  in  London  who  strike  for  nine 
hours'  work  with  ten  hours'  pay  could  be  driven  to  the 
labor  market  of  Western  America  for  a  spell.  And  more- 
over, which  astonished  me,  I  have  seen  men  driven  and  hur- 


AMERICAN  LABORERS. 


137 


ried,  as  it  were  forced  forward  at  their  work,  in  a  manner 
which,  to  an  English  workman,  would  be  intolerable.  This 
surprised  me  much,  as  it  was  at  variance  with  our — or  per- 
haps I  should  say  with  my — preconceived  ideas  as  to  Ameri- 
can freedom,  I  had  fancied  that  an  AmericaD  citizen  would 
not  submit  to  be  driven ;  that  the  spirit  of  the  country,  if 
not  the  spirit  of  the  individual,  would  have  made  it  impos- 
sible. I  thought  that  the  shoe  would  have  pinched  quite 
on  the  other  foot.  But  I  found  that  such  driving  did  exist, 
and  American  masters  in  the  West  with  whom  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  discussing  the  subject  all  admitted  it. 
"Those  men'U  never  half  move  unless  they're  driven,"  a 
foreman  said  to  me  once  as  we  stood  together  over  some 
twenty  men  who  were  at  their  work.  "They  kinder  look 
for  it,  and  don't  well  know  how  to  get  along  when  they  miss 
it."  It  was  not  his  business  at  this  moment  to  drive — nor 
was  he  driving.  He  was  standing  at  some  little  distance 
from  the  scene  with  me,  and  speculating  on  the  sight  before 
him.  I  thought  the  men  were  working  at  their  best ;  but 
their  movements  did  not  satisfy  his  practiced  eye,  and  he 
saw  at  a  glance  that  there  was  no  one  immediately  over 
them. 

But  there  is  worse  even  than  this.  Wages  in  these  re- 
gions are  what  we  should  call  high.  An  agricultural  laborer 
will  earn  perhaps  fifteen  dollars  a  month  and  his  board,  and 
a  town  laborer  will  earn  a  dollar  a  day.  A  dollar  may  be 
taken  as  representing  four  shillings,  though  it  is  in  fact 
more.  Food  in  these  parts  is  much  cheaper  than  in  Eng- 
land, and  therefore  the  wages  must  be  considered  as  very 
good.  In  making,  however,  a  just  calculation  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  clothing  is  dearer  than  in  England,  and 
that  much  more  of  it  is  necessary.  The  wages  nevertheless 
are  high,  and  will  enable  the  laborer  to  save  money,  if  only 
he  can  get  them  paid.  The  complaint  that  wages  are  held 
back,  and  not  even  ultimately  paid,  is  very  common.  There 
is  no  fixed  rule  for  satisfying  all  such  claims  once  a  week, 
and  thus  debts  to  laborers  are  contracted,  and  when  con- 
tracted are  ignored.  With  us  there  is  a  feeling  that  it  is 
pitiful,  mean  almost  beyond  expression,  to  wrong  a  laborer 
of  his  hire.  We  have  men  who  go  in  debt  to  tradesmen 
perhaps  without  a  thought  of  paying  them ;  but  when  we 
speak  of  such  a  one  who  has  descended  into  the  lowest  mire 
of  insolvency,  we  say  that  he  has  not  paid  his  washerwoman. 

12* 


138 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


Out  there  in  the  "West  the  washerwoman  is  as  fair  game  as 
the  tailor,  the  domestic  servant  as  the  wine  merchant.  If 
a  man  be  honest  he  will  not  willingly  take  either  goods  or 
labor  without  payment;  and  it  may  be  hard  to  prove  that 
he  who  takes  the  latter  is  more  dishonest  than  he  who  takes 
the  former;  but  with  us  there  is  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  one's 
washerwoman  by  which  the  Western  mind  is  not  weakened. 
"They  certainly  have  to  be  smart  to  get  it,"  a  gentleman 
said  to  me  whom  I  had  taxed  on  the  subject  "You  see,  on 
the  frontier  a  man  is  bound  to  be  smart.  If  he  aint  smart, 
he'd  better  go  back  East,  perhaps  as  far  as  Europe ;  he'll 
do  there."  I  had  got  my  answer,  and  my  friend  had  turned 
the  question;  but  the  fact  was  admitted  by  him,  as  it  had 
been  by  many  others. 

Why  this  should  be  so  is  a  question  to  answer  which 
thoroughly  would  require  a  volume  in  itself.  As  to  the 
driving,  why  should  men  submit  to  it,  seeing  that  labor  is 
abundant,  and  that  in  all  newly-settled  countries  the  laborer 
is  the  true  hero  of  the  age  ?  In  answer  to  this  is  to  be 
alleged  the  fact  that  hired  labor  is  chiefly  done  by  fresh 
comers,  by  Irish  and  Germans,  who  have  not  as  yet  among 
them  any  combination  sufficient  to  protect  them  from  such 
usage.  The  men  over  them  are  new  as  masters,  masters 
who  are  rough  themselves,  who  themselves  have  been  roughly 
driven,  and  who  have  not  learned  to  be  gracious  to  those 
below  them.  It  is  a  part  of  their  contract  that  very  hard 
work  shall  be  exacted,  and  the  driving  resolves  itself  into 
this :  that  the  master,  looking  after  his  own  interest,  is  con- 
stantly accusing  his  laborer  of  a  breach  of  his  part  of  the 
contract.  The  men  no  doubt  do  become  used  to  it,  and 
slacken  probably  in  their  endeavors  when  the  tongue  of  the 
master  or  foreman  is  not  heard.  But  as  to  that  matter  of 
non-payment  of  wages,  the  men  must  live ;  and  here,  as 
elsewhere,  the  master  who  omits  to  pay  once  will  hardly 
find  laborers  in  future.  The  matter  would  remedy  itself 
elsewhere,  and  does  it  not  do  so  here?  This  of  course  is 
so,  and  it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  labor  as  a  rule  is 
defrauded  of  its  hire.  But  the  relation  of  the  master  and 
the  man  admit  of  such  fraud  here  much  more  frequently 
than  in  England.  In  England  the  laborer  who  did  not  get 
his  wages  on  the  Saturday,  could  not  go  on  for  the  next 
week.  To  him,  under  such  circumstances,  the  world  would 
be  coming  to  an  end.    But  in  the  Western  States  the 


FRONTIER  MEN. 


139 


laborer  does  not  live  so  completely  from  hand  to  mouth. 
He  is  rarely  paid  by  the  week,  is  accustomed  to  give  some 
credit,  and,  till  hard  pressed  by  bad  circumstances,  gener- 
ally has  something  by  him.  Tliey  do  save  money,  and  are 
thus  fattened  up  to  a  state  which  admits  of  victimization. 
I  cannot  owe  money  to  the  little  village  cobbler  who  mends 
my  shoes,  because  he  demands  and  receives  his  payment 
when  his  job  is  done.  But  to  my  friend  in  Regent  Street  I 
extend  my  custom  on  a  different  system ;  and  when  I  make 
my  start  for  continental  life  I  have  with  him  a  matter  of  un- 
settled business  to  a  considerable  extent.  The  American 
laborer  is  in  the  condition  of  the  Regent  Street  bootmaker, 
excepting  in  this  respect,  that  he  gives  his  credit  under 
compulsion.  "But  does  not  the  law  set  him  right?  Is 
there  no  law  against  debtors  ?"  The  laws  against  debtors 
are  plain  enough  as  they  are  written  down,  but  seem  to  be 
anything  but  plain  when  called  into  action.  They  are  per- 
fectly understood,  and  operations  are  carried  on  with  the 
express  purpose  of  evading  them.  If  you  proceed  against 
a  man,  you  find  that  his  property  is  in  the  hands  of  some 
one  else.  You  work  in  fact  for  Jones,  who  lives  in  the 
street  next  to  you ;  but  when  you  quarrel  with  Jones  about 
your  wages,  you  find  that  according  to  law  you  have  been 
working  for  Smith,  in  another  State.  In  all  countries  such 
dodges  are  probably  practicable.  But  men  will  or  will  not 
have  recourse  to  such  dodges  according  to  the  light  in  which 
they  are  regarded  by  the  community.  In  the  Western 
States  such  dodges  do  not  appear  to  be  regarded  as  dis- 
graceful.   "It  behoves  a  frontier  man  to  be  smart,  sir." 

Honesty  is  the  best  policy.  That  is  a  doctrine  which  has 
been  widely  preached,  and  which  has  recommended  itself  to 
many  minds  as  being  one  of  absolute  truth.  It  is  not  very 
ennobling  in  its  sentiment,  seeing  that  it  advocates  a  special 
virtue,  not  on  the  ground  that  that  virtue  is  in  itself  a  thing 
beautiful,  but  on  account  of  the  immediate  reward  which 
will  be  its  consequence.  Smith  is  enjoined  not  to  cheat 
Jones,  because  he  will,  in  the  long  run,  make  more  money 
by  dealing  with  Jones  on  the  square.  This  is  not  teaching 
of  the  highest  order;  but  it  is  teaching  well  adapted  to  hu- 
man circumstances,  and  has  obtained  for  itself  a  wide  credit. 
One  is  driven,  however,  to  doubt  whether  even  this  teaching 
is  not  too  high  for  the  frontier  man.  Is  it  possible  that  a 
frontier  mau  should  be  scrupulous  and  at  the  same  time 


uo 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


successful?  Hitherto  those  wlio  have  allowed  scruples  to 
stand  in  their  way  have  not  succeeded ;  and  they  who  have 
succeeded  and  made  for  themselves  great  names,  who  have 
been  the  pioneers  of  civilization,  have  not  allowed  ideas  of 
exact  honesty  to  stand  in  their  way.  From  General  Jason 
down  to  General  Fremont  there  have  been  men  of  great 
aspirations  but  of  slight  scruples.  They  have  been  ambi- 
tious of  power  and  desirous  of  progress,  but  somewhat  re- 
gardless how  power  and  progress  shall  be  attained.  Clive 
and  Warren  Hastings  were  great  frontier  men,  but  we  can- 
not imagine  that  they  had  ever  realized  the  doctrine  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy.  Cortez,  and  even  Columbus,  the 
prince  of  frontier  men,  are  in  the  same  category.  The 
names  of  such  heroes  is  legion ;  but  with  none  of  them  has 
absolute  honesty  been  a  favorite  virtue.  "It  behoves  a 
frontier  man  to  be  smart,  sir."  Such,  in  that  or  other  lan- 
guage, has  been  the  prevailing  idea.  Such  is  the  prevailing 
idea.  And  one  feels  driven  to  ask  one's  self  whether  such 
must  not  be  the  prevailing  idea  with  those  who  leave  the 
world  and  its  rules  behind  them,  and  go  forth  with  the  re- 
solve that  the  world  and  its  rules  shall  follow  them. 

Of  filibustering,  annexation,  and  polishing  savages  off 
the  face  of  creation  there  has  been  a  great  deal,  and  who 
can  deny  that  humanity  has  been  the  gainer  ?  It  seems  to 
those  who  look  widely  back  over  history,  that  all  such  works 
have  been  carried  on  in  obedience  to  God's  laws.  When 
Jacob  by  Rebecca's  aid  cheated  his  elder  brother,  he  was 
very  smart ;  but  we  cannot  but  suppose  that  a  better  race 
was  by  this  smartness  put  in  possession  of  the  patriarchal 
scepter.  Esau  was  polished  off,  and  readers  of  Scripture 
wonder  why  heaven,  with  its  thunder,  did  not  open  over 
the  heads  of  Rebecca  and  her  son.  But  Jacob,  with  all  his 
fraud,  was  the  chosen  one.  Perhaps  the  day  may  come 
when  scrupulous  honesty  may  be  the  best  policy,  even  on 
the  frontier.  I  can  only  say  that  hitherto  that  day  seems  to 
be  as  distant  as  ever.  I  do  not  pretend  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem, but  simply  record  my  opinion  that  under  circumstances 
as  they  still  exist  I  should  not  willingly  select  a  frontier 
li'o  for  my  children. 

I  have  said  that  all  great  frontier  men  have  been  unscru- 
pulous. There  is,  however,  an  exception  in  history  which 
may  perhaps  serve  to  prove  the  rule.  The  Puritans  who 
colonized  New  England  were  frontier  men,  and  were,  I 


SOLDIERS  AT  MILWAUKEE. 


141 


think,  in  general  scrupulously  honest.  They  had  their 
faults.  They  were  stern,  austere  men,  tyrannical  at  the 
backbone  when  power  came  in  their  way,  as  are  all  pioneers, 
hard  upon  vices  for  which  they  who  made  the  laws  had 
themselves  no  minds ;  but  they  were  not  dishonest. 

At  Milwaukee  I  went  up  to  see  the  Wisconsin  volunteers, 
who  were  then  encamped  on  open  ground  in  the  close  vicin- 
ity of  the  town.  Of  Wisconsin  I  had  heard  before — and 
have  heard  the  same  opinion  repeated  since — that  it  was 
more  backward  in  its  volunteering  than  its  neighbor  States 
in  the  West.  Wisconsin  has  760,000  inhabitants,  and  its 
tenth  thousand  of  volunteers  was  not  then  made  up;  where- 
as Indiana,  with  less  than  double  its  number,  had  already 
sent  out  thirty-six  thousand.  Iowa,  with  a  hundred  thou- 
sand less  of  inhabitants,  had  then  made  up  fifteen  thousand. 
But  neverthless  to  me  it  seemed  that  Wisconsin  was  quite 
alive  to  its  presumed  duty  in  that  respect.  Wisconsin,  with 
its  three-quarters  of  a  million  of  people,  is  as  large  as  Eng- 
land. Every  acre  of  it  may  be  made  productive,  but  as  yet 
it  is  not  half  cleared.  Of  such  a  country  its  young  men 
are  its  heart's  blood.  Ten  thousand  men,  fit  to  bear  arms, 
carried  away  from  such  a  land  to  the  horrors  of  civil  war, 
is  a  sight  as  full  of  sadness  as  any  on  which  the  eye  can 
rest.  Ah  me,  when  will  they  return,  and  with  what  altered 
hopes !  It  is,  I  fear,  easier  to  turn  the  sickle  into  the 
sword  than  to  recast  the  sword  back  again  into  the  sickle  I 

We  found  a  completed  regiment  at  Wisconsin  consisting 
entirely  of  Germans.  A  thousand  Germans  had  been  col- 
lected in  that  State  and  brought  together  in  one  regiment, 
and  I  was  informed  by  an  officer  on  the  ground  that  there 
are  many  Germans  in  sundry  other  of  the  Wisconsin  regi- 
ments. It  may  be  well  to  mention  here  that  the  num- 
ber of  Germans  through  all  these  Western  States  is  very 
great.  Their  number  and  well-being  were  to  me  astonish- 
ing. That  they  form  a  great  portion  of  the  population  of 
New  York,  making  the  German  quarter  of  that  city  the 
third  largest  German  town  in  the  world,  I  have  long  known  ; 
but  I  had  no  previous  idea  of  their  expansion  westward. 
In  Detroit  nearly  every  third  shop  bore  a  German  name, 
and  the  same  remark  was  to  be  made  at  Milwaukee ;  and 
on  all  hands  I  heard  praises  of  their  morals,  of  their  thrift, 
and  of  their  new  patriotism.  I  was  continually  told  how 
far  they  exceeded  the  Irish  settlers.    To  me  in  all  parts  of 


142 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  world  an  Irishman  is  dear.  When  handled  tenderly  he 
becomes  a  creature  most  lovable.  But  with  all  my  judg- 
ment in  the  Irishman's  favor,  and  with  my  prejudices  lean- 
ing the  same  way,  I  feel  myself  bound  to  state  what  I  heard 
and  what  I  saw  as  to  the  Germans. 

But  this  regiment  of  Germans,  and  another  not  com- 
pleted regiment,  called  from  the  State  generally,  were  as 
yet  without  arms,  accouterments,  or  clothing.  There  was 
the  raw  material  of  the  regiment,  but  there  was  nothing 
else.  Winter  was  coming  on  —  winter  in  which  the  mer- 
cury is  commonly  twenty  degrees  below  zero  —  and  the 
men  were  in  tents  with  no  provision  against  the  cold. 
These  tents  held  each  two  men,  and  were  just  large  enough 
for  two  to  lie.  The  canvas  of  which  they  were  made 
seemed  to  me  to  be  thin,  but  was,  I  think,  always  double. 
At  this  camp  there  was  a  house  in  which  the  men  took 
their  meals,  but  I  visited  other  camps  in  which  there  was 
no  such  accommodation.  I  saw  the  German  regiment 
called  to  its  supper  by  tuck  of  drum,  and  the  men  marched 
in  gallantly,  armed  each  with  a  knife  and  spoon.  I  man- 
aged to  make  my  way  in  at  the  door  after  them,  and  can 
testify  to  the  excellence  of  the  provisions  of  which  their 
supper  consisted.  A  poor  diet  never  enters  into  any  com- 
bination of  circumstances  contemplated  by  an  American. 
Let  him  be  where  he  will,  animal  food  is  with  him  the  first 
necessary  of  life,  and  he  is  always  provided  accordingly. 
As  to  those  Wisconsin  men  whom  I  saw,  it  was  probable 
that  they  might  be  marched  off,  down  South  to  Washington, 
or  to  the  doubtful  glories  of  the  Western  campaign  under 
Fremont,  before  the  winter  commenced.  The  same  might 
have  been  said  of  any  special  regiment.  But  taking  the 
whole  mass  of  men  who  were  collected  under  canvas  at  the 
end  of  the  autumn  of  1861,  and  who  were  so  collected 
without  arms  or  military  clothing,  and  without  protection 
from  the  weather,  it  did  seem  that  the  task  taken  in  hand 
by  the  Commissariat  of  the  Northern  army  was  one  not 
devoid  of  difficulty. 

The  view  from  Milwaukee  over  Lake  Michigan  is  very 
pleasing.  One  looks  upon  a  vast  expanse  of  water  to 
which  the  eye  finds  no  bounds,  and  therefore  there  are 
none  of  the  common  attributes  of  lake  beauty;  but  the 
color  of  the  lake  is  bright,  and  within  a  walk  of  the  city 
the  traveler  comes  to  the  blufis  or  low  round-topped  hills, 


SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW  LANDS. 


143 


from  whicli  we  can  look  down  upon  the  shores.  These 
bluffs  form  the  beauty  of  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota,  and 
relieve  the  eye  after  the  flat  level  of  Michigan.  Round 
Detroit  there  is  no  rising  ground,  and  therefore,  perhaps, 
it  is  that  Detroit  is  uninteresting. 

I  have  said  that  those  who  are  called  on  to  labor  in  these 
States  have  their  own  hardships,  and  I  have  endeavored  to 
explain  what  are  the  sufferings  to  which  the  town  laborer 
is  subject.  To  escape  from  this  is  the  laborer's  great 
ambition,  and  his  mode  of  doing  so  consists  almost  univer- 
sally in  the  purchase  of  land.  He  saves  up  money  in  order 
that  he  may  buy  a  section  of  an  allotment,  and  thus  become 
his  own  master.  All  his  savings  are  made  with  a  view  to 
this  independence.  Seated  on  his  own  land  he  will  have  to 
work  probably  harder  than  ever,  but  he  will  work  for  him- 
self. No  task-master  can  then  stand  over  him  and  wound 
his  pride  with  harsh  words.  He  will  be  his  own  master; 
will  cat  the  food  which  he  himself  has  grown,  and  live  in 
the  cabin  which  his  own  hands  have  built.  This  is  the 
object  of  his  life ;  and  to  secure  this  position  he  is  content 
to  work  late  and  early  and  to  undergo  the  indignities  of 
previous  servitude.  The  government  price  for  land  is 
about  five  shillings  an  acre — one  dollar  and  a  quarter — and 
the  settler  may  get  it  for  this  price  if  he  be  contented  to 
take  it  not  only  untouched  as  regards  clearing,  but  also  far 
removed  from  any  completed  road.  The  traffic  in  these 
lands  has  been  the  great  speculating  business  of  Western 
men.  Five  or  six  years  ago,  when  the  rage  for  such  pur- 
chases was  at  its  height,  land  was  becoming  a  scarce  article 
in  the  market.  Individuals  or  companies  bought  it  up  with 
the  object  of  reselling  it  at  a  profit ;  and  many,  no  doubt, 
did  make  money.  Railway  companies  were,  in  fact,  com- 
panies combined  for  the  purchase  of  laud.  They  pur- 
chased land,  looking  to  increase  the  value  of  it  fivefold  by 
the  opening  of  a  railroad.  It  may  easily  be  understood 
that  a  railway,  which  could  not  be  in  itself  remunerative, 
might  in  this  Avay  become  a  lucrative  speculation.  No  set- 
tler could  dare  to  place  himself  absolutely  at  a  distance 
from  any  thoroughfare.  At  first  the  margins  of  nature's 
highways,  the  navigable  rivers  and  lakes,  were  cleared.  But 
as  the  railway  S3^stem  grew  and  expanded  itself,  it  became 
manifest  that  lands  might  be  rendered  quickly  available 
which  were  not  so  circumstanced  by  nature.    A  company 


144 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


which  had  purchased  an  enormous  territory  from  the  United 
States  government  at  five  shillings  an  acre  might  well  repay 
itself  all  the  cost  of  a  railway  through  that  territory,  even 
though  the  receipts  of  the  railway  should  do  no  more  than 
maintain  the  current  expenses.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the 
thousands  of  miles  of  American  railroads  have  been  opened  ; 
and  here  again  must  be  seen  the  immense  advantages  which 
the  States  as  a  new  country  have  enjoyed.  With  us  the 
purchase  of  valuable  land  for  railways,  together  with  the 
legal  expenses  which  those  compulsory  purchases  entailed, 
have  been  so  great  that  with  all  our  traffic  railways  are  not 
remunerative.  But  in  the  States  the  railways  have  created 
the  value  of  the  land.  The  States  have  been  able  to  begin 
at  the  right  end,  and  to  arrange  that  the  districts  which  are 
benefited  shall  themselves  pay  for  the  benefit  they  receive. 

The  government  price  of  land  is  125  cents,  or  about  five 
shillings  an  acre ;  and  even  this  need  not  be  paid  at  once  if 
the  settler  purchase  directly  from  the  government.  He 
must  begin  by  making  certain  improvements  on  the  selected 
land — clearing  and  cultivating  some  small  portion,  building 
a  hut,  and  probably  sinking  a  well.  When  this  has  been 
done — when  he  has  thus  given  a  pledge  of  his  intentions 
by  depositing  on  the  land  the  value  of  a  certain  amount 
of  labor,  he  cannot  be  removed.  He  cannot  be  removed 
for  a  term  of  years,  and  then  if  he  pays  the  price  of  the 
land  it  becomes  his  own  with  an  indefeasible  title.  Many 
such  settlements  are  made  on  the  purchase  of  warrants 
for  land.  Soldiers  returning  from  the  Mexican  wars  were 
donated  with  warrants  for  land — the  amount  being  160 
acres,  or  the  quarter  of  a  section.  The  localities  of  such 
lands  were  not  specified,  but  the  privilege  granted  was 
that  of  occupying  any  quarter-section  not  hitherto  tenanted. 
It  will,  of  course,  be  understood  that  lands  favorably  situ- 
ated would  be  tenanted.  Those  contiguous  to  railways 
were  of  course  so  occupied,  seeing  that  the  lines  were  not 
made  till  the  lands  were  in  the  hands  of  the  companies. 
It  may  therefore  be  understood  of  what  nature  would  be 
the  traffic  in  these  warrants.  The  owner  of  a  single  war- 
rant might  find  it  of  no  value  to  him.  To  go  back  utterly 
into  the  woods,  away  from  river  or  road,  and  there  to  com- 
mence with  160  acres  of  forest,  or  even  of  prairie,  would 
be  a  hopeless  task  even  to  an  American  settler.  Some 
mode  of  transport  for  his  produce  must  be  found  before  his 


THE  FllONTIER  MAN. 


145 


produce  would  be  of  value — before,  indeed,  he  could  find 
the  means  of  living.  But  a  company  buying  up  a  large 
aggregate  of  such  warrants  would  possess  the  means  of 
making  such  allotments  valuable  and  of  reselling  them  at 
greatly  increased  prices. 

The  primary  settler,  therefore — who,  however,  will  not 
usually  have  been  the  primary  owner — goes  to  work  upon 
his  land  amid  all  the  wildness  of  nature.  He  levels  and 
burns  the  first  trees,  and  raises  his  first  crop  of  corn  amid 
stumps  still  standing  four  or  five  feet  above  the  soil;  but 
he  does  not  do  so  till  some  mode  of  conveyance  has  been 
found  for  him.  So  much  I  have  said  hoping  to  explain  the 
mode  in  which  the  frontier  speculator  paves  the  way  for  the 
frontier  agriculturist.  But  the  permanent  farmer  very  gen- 
erally comes  on  the  land  as  the  third  owner.  The  first  set- 
tler is  a  rough  fellow,  and  seems  to  be  so  wedded  to  his 
rough  life  that  he  leaves  his  land  after  his  first  wild  work 
is  done,  and  goes  again  farther  off  to  some  untouched 
allotment.  He  finds  that  he  can  sell  his  improvements  at 
a  profitable  rate  and  takes  the  price.  He  is  a  preparer  of 
farms  rather  than  a  farmer.  He  has  no  love  for  the  soil 
which  his  hand  has  first  turned.  He  regards  it  merely  as 
an  investment;  and  when  things  about  him  are  beginning 
to  wear  an  aspect  of  comfort,  when  his  property  has  be- 
come valuable,  he  sells  it;  packs  up  his  wife  and  little  ones, 
and  goes  again  into  the  woods.  The  Western  American 
has  no  love  for  his  own  soil  or  his  own  house.  The  matter 
with  him  is  simply  one  of  dollars.  To  keep  a  farm  which 
he  could  sell  at  an  advantage  from  any  feeling  of  affection 
— from  what  we  should  call  an  association  of  ideas — would 
be  to  him  as  ridiculous  as  the  keeping  of  a  family  pig  would 
be  in  an  English  farmer's  establishment.  The  pig  is  a  part 
of  the  farmer's  stock  in  trade,  and  must  go  the  way  of  all 
pigs.  And  so  is  it  with  house  and  land  in  the  life  of  the 
frontier  man  in  the  Western  States. 

Bat  yet  this  man  has  his  romance,  his  high  poetic  feel- 
ing, and  above  all  his  manly  dignity.  Yisit  him,  and  you 
will  find  him  without  coat  or  waistcoat,  unshorn,  in  ragged 
blue  trowsers  and  old  flannel  shirt,  too  often  bearing  on  his 
lantern  jaws  the  signs  of  ague  and  sickness;  but  he  will 
stand  upright  before  you  and  speak  to  you  with  all  the 
ease  of  a  lettered  gentleman  in  his  own  library.  All  the 
odious  incivilit/  of  the  republican  servant  has  been  ban- 

13 


146 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ished.  He  is  his  own  master,  standing  on  his  own  threshold, 
and  finds  no  need  to  assert  his  equality  by  rudeness.  He 
is  delip^hted  to  see  you,  and  bids  you  sit  down  on  his  bat- 
tered bench  without  dreaming  of  any  such  apology  as  an 
English  cottier  offers  to  a  Lady  Bountiful  when  she  calls. 
He  has  worked  out  his  independence,  and  shows  it  in  every 
easy  movement  of  his  body.  He  tells  you  of  it  uncon- 
sciously in  every  tone  of  his  voice.  You  will  always  find 
in  his  cabin  some  newspaper,  some  book,  some  token  of 
advance  in  education.  When  he  questions  you  about  the 
old  country  he  astonishes  you  by  the  extent  of  his  knowl- 
edge. I  defy  you  not  to  feel  that  he  is  superior  to  the 
race  from  whence  he  has  sprung  in  England  or  in  Ireland. 
To  me  I  confess  that  the  manliness  of  such  a  man  is  very 
charming.  He  is  dirty,  and,  perhaps,  squalid.  His  chil- 
dren are  sick  and  he  is  without  comforts.  His  wife  is  pale, 
and  you  think  you  see  shortness  of  life  written  in  the  faces 
of  all  the  family.  But  over  and  above  it  all  there  is  an 
Independence  which  sits  gracefully  on  their  shoulders,  and 
teaches  you  at  the  first  glance  that  the  man  has  a  right  to 
assume  himself  to  be  your  equal.  It  is  for  this  position 
that  the  laborer  works,  bearing  hard  words  and  the  indig- 
nity of  tyranny;  suffering  also  tot)  often  the  dishonest  ill 
usage  which  his  superior  power  enables  the  master  to 
inflict. 

"  I  have  lived  very  rough,"  I  heard  a  poor  woman  say, 
whose  husband  had  ill  used  and  deserted  her.  "  I  have 
known  what  it  is  to  be  hungry  and  cold,  and  to  work  hard 
till  my  bones  have  ached.  I  only  wish  that  I  might 
have  the  same  chance  again.  If  I  could  have  ten  acres 
cleared  two  miles  away  from  any  living  being,  I  could  be 
happy  with  my  children.  I  find  a  kind  of  comfort  when  I 
am  at  work  from  daybreak  to  sundown,  and  know  that  it  is 
all  my  own."  I  believe  that  life  in  the  backwoods  has  an 
allurement  to  those  who  have  been  used  to  it  that  dwellers 
in  cities  can  hardly  comprehend. 

From  Milwaukee  we  went  across  Wisconsin,  and  reached 
the  Mississippi  at  La  Crosse.  From  hence,  according  to 
agreement,  we  were  to  start  by  steamer  at  once  up  the  river. 
But  we  were  delayed  again,  as  had  happened  to  us  before 
on  Lake  Michigan  at  Grand  Haven. 


SOLDIERS  FROM  MINNESOTA. 


U1 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI. 

It  had  been  promised  to  us  that  we  should  start  from  La 
Crosse  by  the  river  steamer  immediately  on  our  arrival 
there  ;  but,  on  reaching  La  Crosse,  we  found  that  the  ves- 
sel destined  to  take  us  up  the  river  had  not  yet  come  down. 
She  was  bringing  a  regiment  from  Minnesota,  and,  under 
such  circumstances,  some  pardon  might  be  extended  to  ir- 
regularities. This  plea  was  made  by  one  of  the  boat  clerks 
in  a  very  humble  tone,  and  was  fully  accepted  by  us. 
The  wonder  was  that,  at  such  a  period,  all  means  of  public 
conveyance  were  not  put  absolutely  out  of  gear.  One  might 
surmise  that  when  regiments  were  constantly  being  moved 
for  the  purposes  of  civil  war — when  the  whole  North  had 
but  the  one  object  of  collecting  together  a  sufficient  number 
of  men  to  crush  the  South — ordinary  traveling  for  ordinary 
purposes  would  be  difficult,  slow,  and  subject  to  sudden 
stoppages.  Such,  however,  was  not  the  case  either  in  the 
Northern  or  Western  States.  The  trains  ran  much  as  usual, 
and  those  connected  with  the  boats  and  railways  were  just 
as  anxious  as  ever  to  secure  passengers.  The  boat  clerk  at 
La  Crosse  apologized  amply  for  the  delay ;  and  we  sat  our- 
selves down  with  patience  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  second 
Minnesota  Regiment  on  its  way  to  Washington. 

During  the  four  hours  that  we  were  kept  waiting  we  were 
harbored  on  board  a  small  steamer;  and  at  about  eleven 
the  terribly  harsh  whistle  that  is  made  by  the  Mississippi 
boats  informed  us  that  the  regiment  was  arriving.  It  came 
up  to  the  quay  in  two  steamers — 150  being  brought  in  that 
which  was  to  take  us  back,  and  250  in  a  smaller  one.  The 
moon  was  very  bright,  and  great  flaming  torches  were  lit 
on  the  vessel's  side,  so  that  all  the  operations  of  the  men 
were  visible.  The  two  steamers  had  run  close  up,  thrusting 
us  away  from  the  quay  in  their  passage,  but  doing  it  so 
gently  that  we  did  not  even  feel  the  motion.  These  large 
boats — and  their  size  may  be  understood  from  the  fact  that 


148 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


one  of  them  had  just  brought  clown  150  men — are  moved 
so  easily  and  so  gently  that  they  come  gliding  in  among 
each  other  without  hesitation  and  without  pause.  On  Eng- 
lish waters  we  do  not  willingly  run  ships  against  each  other; 
and  when  we  do  so  unwillingly,  they  bump  and  crush  and 
crash  upon  each  other,  and  timbers  fly  while  men  are  swear- 
ing. But  here  there  was  neither  crashing  nor  swearing ; 
and  the  boats  noiselessly  pressed  against  each  other  as 
though  they  were  cased  in  muslin  and  crinoline. 

I  got  out  upon  the  quay  and  stood  close  by  the  plank, 
watching  each  man  as  he  left  the  vessel  and  walked  across 
toward  the  railway.  Those  whom  I  had  previously  seen  in 
tents  were  not  equipped ;  but  these  men  were  in  uniform, 
and  each  bore  his  musket.  Taking  them  altogether,  they 
were  as  fine  a  set  of  men  as  I  ever  saw  collected.  No  man 
could  doubt,  on  seeing  them,  that  they  bore  on  their  coun- 
tenances the  signs  of  higher  breeding  and  better  education 
than  would  be  seen  in  a  thousand  men  enlisted  in  England. 
I  do  not  mean  to  argue  from  this  that  Americans  are  bettei> 
than  English.  I  do  not  mean  to  argue  here  that  they  are 
even  better  educated.  My  assertion  goes  to  show  that  the 
men  generally  were  taken  from  a  higher  level  in  the  com- 
munity than  that  which  fills  our  own  ranks.  It  was  a  mat- 
ter of  regret  to  me,  here  and  on  many  subsequent  occasions, 
to  see  men  bound  for  three  years  to  serve  as  common  sol- 
diers who  were  so  manifestly  fitted  for  a  better  and  more 
useful  life.  To  me  it  is  always  a  source  of  sorrow  to  see  a 
man  enlisted.  I  feel  that  the  individual  recruit  is  doing 
badly  with  himself — carrying  himself,  and  the  strength  and 
intelligence  which  belong  to  him,  to  a  bad  market.  I  know 
that  there  must  be  soldiers;  but  as  to  every  separate  soldier 
I  regret  that  he  should  be  one  of  them.  And  the  higher 
is  the  class  from  which  such  soldiers  are  drawn,  the  greater 
the  intelligence  of  the  men  so  to  be  employed,  the  deeper 
with  me  is  that  feeling  of  regret.  But  this  strikes  one  much 
less  in  an  old  country  than  in  a  country  that  is  new.  In  the 
old  countries  population  is  thick  and  food  sometimes  scarce. 
Men  can  be  spared  ;  and  any  employment  may  be  servicea- 
ble, even  though  that  employment  be  in  itself  so  unproduct- 
ive as  that  of  fighting  battles  or  preparing  for  them.  But 
in  the  Western  States  of  America  every  arm  that  can  guide 
a  plow  is  of  incalculable  value.  Minnesota  was  admitted 
as  a  State  about  three  years  before  this  time,  and  its  whole 


SOLDIERS  FROM  MINNESOrA. 


149 


population  is  not  much  above  150,000.  Of  this  number 
perhaps  40,000  may  be  working  men.  And  now  this  infant 
State,  with  its  huge  territory  and  scanty  population,  is 
called  upon  to  send  its  heart's  blood  out  to  the  war. 

And  it  has  sent  its  heart's  best  blood.  Forth  they  came 
— fine,  stalwart,  well-grown  fellows — looking,  to  my  eye,  as 
though  they  had  as  yet  but  faintly  recognized  the  necessary 
severity  of  military  discipline.  To  them  hitherto  the  war 
had  seemed  to  be  an  arena  on  which  each  might  do  some- 
thing for  his  country  which  that  country  would  recognize. 
To  themselves  as  yet — and  to  me  also — they  were  a  band 
of  heroes,  to  be  reduced  by  the  compressing  power  of  mili- 
tary discipline  to  the  lower  level,  but  more  necessary  posi- 
tion, of  a  regiment  of  soldiers.  Ah,  me  !  how  terrible  to 
them  has  been  the  breaking  up  of  that  delusion  !  When  a 
poor  yokel  in  England  is  enlisted  with  a  shilling  and  a  prom- 
ise of  unlimited  beer  and  glory,  one  pities,  and,  if  possible, 
would  save  him.  But  with  him  the  mode  of  life  to  which 
he  goes  may  not  be  much  inferior  to  that  he  leaves.  It  may 
be  that  for  him  soldiering  is  the  best  trade  possible  in  his 
circumstances.  It  may  keep  him  from  the  hen-roosts,  and 
perhaps  from  his  neighbors'  pantries  ;  and  discipline  may 
be  good  for  him.  Population  is  thick  with  us  ;  and  there 
are  many  whom  it  may  be  well  to  collect  and  make  avail- 
able under  the  strictest  surveillance.  But  of  these  men 
whom  I  saw  entering  on  their  career  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi,  many  were  fathers  of  families,  many  were  own- 
ers of  lands,  many  were  educated  men  capable  of  high 
aspirations — all  were  serviceable  members  of  their  State. 
There  were  probably  there  not  three  or  four  of  whom  it 
would  be  well  that  the  State  should  be  rid.  As  soldiers, 
fit  or  capable  of  being  made  fit  for  the  duties  they  had  un- 
dertaken, I  could  find  but  one  fault  with  them.  Their  aver- 
age age  was  too  high.  There  were  men  among  them  with 
grizzled  beards,  and  many  who  had  counted  thirty,  thirty- 
five,  and  forty  years.  They  had,  I  believe,  devoted  them.- 
selves  with  a  true  spirit  of  patriotism.  No  doubt  each  had 
some  ulterior  hope  as  to  himself,  as  has  every  mortal  pa- 
triot. Regulus,  when  he  returned  hopeless  to  Carthage, 
trusted  that  some  Horace  would  tell  his  story.  Each  of 
these  men  from  Minnesota  looked  probably  forward  to  his 
reward;  but  the  reward  desired  was  of  a  high  class. 

The  first  great  misery  to  be  endured  by  these  regiments 
13* 


150 


NORTH  AMEHICA. 


will  be  the  military  lesson  of  obedience  which  they  must 
learn  before  they  can  be  of  any  service.  It  always  seemed 
to  me,  when  I  came  near  them,  that  they  had  not  as  yet 
recognized  the  necessary  austerity  of  an  -officer's  duty.  Their 
idea  of  a  captain  was  the  stage  idea  of  a  leader  of  dramatic 
banditti — a  man  to  be  followed  and  obeyed  as  a  leader,  but 
to  be  obeyed  with  that  free  and  easy  obedience  which  is  ac- 
corded to  the  reigning  chief  of  the  forty  thieves.  "Waal, 
captain,"  I  have  heard  a  private  say  to  his  officer,  as  he  sat 
on  one  seat  in  a  railway  car,  with  his  feet  upon  the  back  of 
another.  And  the  captain  has  looked  as  though  he  did  not 
like  it.  The  captain  did  not  like  it ;  but  the  poor  private 
was  being  fast  carried  to  that  destiny  which  he  would  like 
still  less.  From  the  first  I  have  had  faith  in  the  Northern 
army;  but  from  the  first  I  have  felt  that  the  suffering  to  be 
endured  by  these  free  and  independent  volunteers  would  be 
very  great.  A  man,  to  be  available  as  a  private  soldier, 
must  be  compressed  and  belted  in  till  he  be  a  machine. 

As  soon  as  the  men  had  left  the  vessel  we  walked  over 
the  side  of  it  and  took  possession.  I  am  afraid  your 
cabin  won't  be  ready  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,"  said  the 
clerk.  "  Such  a  body  of  men  as  that  will  leave  some  dirt 
after  them."  I  assured  him,  of  course,  that  our  expecta- 
tions under  such  circumstances  were  very  limited,  and  that 
I  was  fully  aware  that  the  boat  and  the  boat's  company 
were  taken  up  with  matters  of  greater  moment  than  the 
carriage  of  ordinary  passengers.  But  to  this  he  demurred 
altogether.  "  The  regiments  were  very  little  to  them,  but  occa- 
sioned much  trouble.  Everything,  however,  should  be  square 
in  fifteen  minutes."  At  the  expiration  of  the  time  named 
the  key  of  our  state-room  was  given  to  us,  and  we  found  the 
appurtenances  as  clean  as  though  no  soldier  had  ever  put 
his  foot  upon  the  vessel. 

From  La  Crosse  to  St.  Paul  the  distance  up  the  river  is 
something  over  200  miles ;  and  from  St.  Paul  down  to  Du- 
buque in  Iowa,  to  which  we  went  on  our  return,  the  distance 
is  450  miles.  We  were,  therefore,  for  a  considerable  time 
on  board  these  boats — more  so  than  such  a  journey  may 
generally  make  necessary,  as  we  were  delayed  at  first  by  the 
soldiers,  and  afterward  by  accidents,  such  as  the  breaking 
of  a  paddle-wheel,  and  other  causes,  to  which  navigation  on 
the  Upper  Mississippi  seems  to  be  liable.  On  the  whole, 
we  slept  on  board  four  nights,  and  lived  on  board  as  many 


BOATS  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 


151 


days.  I  cannot  say  that  the  life  was  comfortable,  though  I 
do  not  know  that  it  could  be  made  more  so  by  any  care  on 
the  part  of  the  boat  owners.  My  first  complaint  would  be 
against  the  great  heat  of  the  cabins.  The  Americans,  as  a 
rule,  live  in  an  atmosphere  which  is  almost  unbearable  by 
an  Englishman.  To  this  cause,  I  am  convinced,  is  to  be 
attributed  tlieir  thin  faces,  their  pale  skins,  their  unener- 
getic  temperament — unenergetic  as  regards  physical  motion 
— and  their  early  old  age.  The  winters  are  long  and  cold 
in  America,  and  mechanical  ingenuity  is  far  extended. 
These  two  facts  together  have  created  a  system  of  stoves, 
hot-air  pipes,  steam  chambers,  and  heating  apparatus  so 
extensive  that,  from  autumn  till  the  end  of  spring,  all  in- 
habited rooms  are  filled  with  the  atmosphere  of  a  hot  oven. 
An  Englishman  fancies  that  he  is  to  be  baked,  and  for 
awhile  finds  it  almost  impossible  to  exist  in  the  air  prepared 
for  him.  How  the  heat  is  engendered  on  board  the  river 
steamers  I  do  not  know,  but  it  is  engendered  to  so  great  a 
degree  that  the  sitting-cabins  are  unendurable.  The  pa- 
tient is  therefore  driven  out  at  all  hours  into  the  outside 
balconies  of  the  boat,  or  on  to  the  top  roof — for  it  is  a  roof 
rather  than  a  deck — and  there,  as  he  passes  through  the  air 
at  the  rate  of  twenty  miles  an  hour,  finds  himself  chilled  to 
the  very  bones.  That  is  my  first  complaint.  But  as  the 
boats  are  made  for  Americans,  and  as  Americans  like  hot 
air,  I  do  not  put  it  forward  with  any  idea  that  a  change 
ought  to  be  effected.  My  second  complaint  is  equally  un- 
reasonable, and  is  quite  as  incapable  of  a  remedy  as  the 
first.  Nine-tenths  of  the  travelers  carry  children  with  them. 
They  are  not  tourists  engaged  on  pleasure  excursions,  but 
men  and  women  intent  on  the  business  of  life.  They  are 
moving  up  and  down  looking  for  fortune  and  in  search  of 
new  homes.  Of  course  they  carry  with  them  all  their  house- 
hold gods.  Do  not  let  any  critic  say  that  I  grudge  these 
young  travelers  their  right  to  locomotion.  Neither  their 
right  to  locomotion  is  grudged  by  me,  nor  any  of  those 
privileges  which  are  accorded  in  America  to  the  rising  gen- 
eration. The  habits  of  their  country  and  the  choice  of 
tlieir  parents  give  to  them  full  dominion  over  all  hours  and 
over  all  places,  and  it  would  ill  become  a  foreigner  to  make 
such  habits  and  such  choice  a  ground  of  serious  complaint. 
But,  nevertheless,  the  uncontrolled  energies  of  twenty  chil- 
dren round  one's  legs  do  not  convey  comfort  or  happiness, 


152 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


when  the  passing  events  are  producing  noise  and  storm 
rather  than  peace  and  sunshine.  I  must  protest  that  Amer- 
ican babies  are  an  unliappy  race.  They  eat  and  drink  just 
as  they  please  ;  they  are  never  punished ;  they  are  never 
banished,  snubbed,  and  kept  in  the  background  as  children 
are  kept  with  us,  and  yet  they  are  wretched  and  uncomfort- 
able. My  heart  has  bled  for  them  as  I  have  heard  them 
squalling  by  the  hour  together  in  agonies  of  discontent  and 
dyspepsia.  Can  it  be,  I  wonder,  that  children  are  happier 
when  they  are  made  to  obey  orders,  and  are  sent  to  bed  at 
six  o'clock,  than  when  allowed  to  regulate  their  own  con- 
duct ;  that  bread  and  milk  are  more  favorable  to  laughter 
and  soft,  childish  ways  than  beef-steaks  and  pickles  three 
times  a  day;  that  an  occasional  whipping,  even,  will  con- 
duce to  rosy  cheeks  ?  It  is  an  idea  which  I  should  never 
dare  to  broach  to  an  American  mother ;  but  I  must  confess 
that,  after  my  travels  on  the  Western  Continent,  my  opin- 
ions have  a  tendency  in  that  direction.  Beef-steaks  and 
pickles  certainly  produce  smart  little  men  and  women.  Let 
that  be  taken  for  granted.  But  rosy  laughter  and  winning, 
childish  ways  are,  I  fancy,  the  produce  of  bread  and  milk. 
But  there  was  a  third  reason  why  traveling  on  these  boats 
was  not  so  pleasant  as  I  had  expected.  I  could  not  get  my 
fellow-travelers  to  talk  to  me.  It  must  be  understood  that 
our  fellow-travelers  were  not  generally  of  that  class  which 
we  Englishmen,  in  our  pride,  designate  as  gentlemen  and 
ladies.  They  were  people,  as  I  have  said,  in  search  of  new 
homes  and  new  fortunes.  But  I  protest  that  as  such  they 
would  have  been,  in  those  parts,  much  more  agreeable  as 
companions  to  me  than  any  gentlemen  or  any  ladies,  if  only 
they  would  have  talked  to  me.  I  do  not  accuse  them  of 
any  incivility.  If  addressed,  they  answered  me.  If  appli^ 
cation  was  made  by  me  for  any  special  information,  trouble 
was  taken  to  give  it  me.  But  I  found  no  aptitude,  no  wish 
for  conversation — nay,  even  a  disinclination  to  converse. 
In  the  Western  States  I  do  not  think  that  I  was  ever  ad- 
dressed lirst  by  an  American  sitting  next  to  mc  at  table. 
Indeed,  I  never  held  any  conversation  at  a  public  table  in 
the  West.  I  have  sat  in  the  same  room  with  men  for  hours, 
and  have  not  had  a  word  spoken  to  me.  I  have  done  ray 
very  best  to  break  through  this  ice,  and  have  always  failed. 
A  Western  American  man  is  not  a  talking  man.  He  will 
sit  for  hours  over  a  stove,  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth  and  his 


SCENERY  OP  THE  UPPER  MISSISSIPPI. 


153 


hat  over  liis  eyes,  chewing  the  cud  of  reflection.  A  dozen 
will  sit  together  in  the  same  way,  and  there  shall  not  be  a 
dozen  words  spoken  between  them  in  an  hour.  With  the 
women  one's  chance  of  conversation  is  still  worse.  It 
seemed  as  though  the  cares  of  the  world  had  been  too  much 
for  them,  and  that  all  talking  excepting  as  to  business — de- 
mands, for  instance,  on  the  servants  for  pickles  for  their 
children — had  gone  by  the  board.  They  were  generally 
hard,  dry,  and  melancholy.  I  am  speaking,  of  course,  of 
aged  females — from  live  and  twenty,  perhaps,  to  thirty — 
who  had  long  since  given  up  the  amusements  and  levities 
of  life.  I  very  soon  abandoned  any  attempt  at  drawing  a 
word  from  these  ancient  mothers  of  families ;  but  not  the 
less  did  I  ponder  in  my  mind  over  the  circumstances  of 
their  lives.  Had  things  gone  with  them  so  sadly — was  the 
struggle  for  independence  so  hard — that  all  the  softness  of 
existence  had  been  trodden  out  of  them  ?  In  the  cities, 
too,  it  was  much  the  same.  It  seemed  to  me  that  a  future 
mother  of  a  family,  in  those  parts,  had  left  all  laughter  be- 
hind her  when  she  put  out  her  finger  for  the  wedding  ring. 

For  these  reasons  I  must  say  that  life  on  board  these 
steamboats  was  not  as  pleasant  as  I  had  hoped  to  find  it ; 
but  for  our  discomfort  in  this  respect  we  found  great  atone- 
ment in  the  scenery  through  which  we  passed.  I  protest 
that  of  all  the  river  scenery  that  I  know  that  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi  is  by  far  the  finest  and  the  most  continued. 
One  thinks,  of  course,  of  the  Rhine  ;  but,  according  to  my 
idea  of  beauty,  the  Rhine  is  nothing  to  the  Upper  Missis- 
sippi. For  miles  upon  miles — for  hundreds  of  miles — the 
course  of  the  river  runs  through  low  hills,  which  are  there 
called  bluffs.  These  bluffs  rise  in  every  imaginable  form, 
looking  sometimes  like  large,  straggling,  unwieldy  castles, 
and  then  throwing  themselves  into  sloping  lawns  which 
stretch  back  away  from  the  river  till  the  eye  is  lost  in  their 
twists  and  turnings.  Landscape  beauty,  as  I  take  it,  con- 
sists mainly  in  four  attributes — in  water ;  in  broken  land  ; 
in  scattered  timber,  timber  scattered  as  opposed  to  continu- 
ous forest  timber  ;  and  in  the  accident  of  color.  In  all  these 
particulars  the  banks  of  the  Upper  Mississippi  can  hardly 
be  beaten.  There  are  no  high  mountains  ;  but  high  mount- 
ains themselves  are  grand  rather  than  beautiful.  There  are 
no  high  mountains ;  but  there  is  a  succession  of  hills,  which 
group  themselves  forever  without  monotony.  It  is,  perhaps, 


154  NORTH  AMERICA. 

the  ever-variegated  forms  of  these  bliifiFs  which  chiefly  con- 
stitute the  wonderful  loveliness  of  this  river.  The  idea 
constantly  occurs  that  some  point  on  every  hillside  would 
form  the  most  charming  site  ever  yet  chosen  for  a  noble 
residence.  I  have  passed  up  and  down  rivers  clothed  to 
the  edge  with  continuous  forest.  This  at  first  is  grand 
enough,  but  the  eye  and  feeling  soon  become  weary.  Here 
the  trees  are  scattered  so  that  the  eye  passes  through  them, 
and  ever  and  again  a  long  Isbwu  sweeps  back  into  the  coun- 
try and  up  the  steep  side  of  a  hill,  making  the  traveler  long 
to  stay  there  and  linger  through  the  oaks,  and  climb  the 
blulfs,  and  lay  about  on  the  bold  but  easy  summits.  The 
boat,  however,  steams  quickly  up  against  the  current,  and 
the  happy  valleys  are  left  behind  one  quickly  after  another. 
The  river  is  very  various  in  its  breadth,  and  is  constantly 
divided  by  islands.  It  is  never  so  broad  that  the  beauty  of 
the  banks  is  lost  in  the  distance  or  injured  by  it.  It  is 
rapid,  but  has  not  the  beautifully  bright  color  of  some  Eu- 
ropean rivers — of  the  Rhine,  for  instance,  and  the  Rhone. 
But  what  is  wanting  in  the  color  of  the  water  is  more  than 
compensated  by  the  wonderful  hues  and  luster  of  the  shores. 
We  visited  the  river  in  October,  and  I  must  presume  that 
they  who  seek  it  solely  for  the  sake  of  scenery  should  go 
there  in  that  month.  It  was  not  only  that  the  foliage  of 
the  trees  was  bright  with  every  imaginable  color,  but  that 
the  grass  was  bronzed  and  that  the  rocks  were  golden. 
And  this  beauty  did  not  last  only  for  awhile,  and  then 
cease.  On  the  Rhine  there  are  lovely  spots  and  special 
morsels  of  scenery  with  which  the  traveler  becomes  duly 
enraptured.  But  on  the  Upper  Mississippi  there  are  no 
special  morsels.  The  position  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens 
will,  as  it  always  does,  make  much  difference  in  the  degree 
of  beauty.  The  hour  before  and  the  half  hour  after  sunset 
are  always  the  loveliest  for  such  scenes.  But  of  the  shores 
themselves  one  may  declare  that  they  are  lovely  throughout 
those  four  hundred  miles  which  run  immediately  south  from 
St.  Paul 

About  half  way  between  La  Crosse  and  St.  Paul  we 
came  upon  Lake  Pepin,  and  continued  our  course  up  the 
lake  for  perhaps  fifty  or  sixty  miles.  This  expanse  of  water 
is  narrow  for  a  lake,  and,  by  those  who  know  the  lower 
courses  of  great  rivers,  would  hardly  be  dignified  by  that 
name.     But,  nevertheless,  the  breadth  here  lessens  the 


ST.  PAUL. 


155 


beauty.  There  are  the  same  bluffs,  the  same  scattered 
woodlands,  and  the  same  colors.  But  they  are  either  at  a 
distance,  or  else  they  are  to  be  seen  on  one  side  only.  The 
more  that  I  see  of  the  beauty  of  scenery,  and  the  more  I 
consider  its  elements,  the  stronger  becomes  my  conviction 
that  size  has  but  little  to  do  with  it,  and  rather  detracts  from 
it  than  adds  to  it.  Distance  gives  one  of  its  greatest 
charms,  but  it  does  so  by  concealing  rather  than  displaying 
an  expanse  of  surface.  The  beauty  of  distance  arises  from 
the  romance,  the  feeling  of  mystery  which  it  creates.  It  is 
like  the  beauty  of  woman,  which  allures  the  more  the  more 
that  it  is  vailed.  But  open,  uncovered  land  and  water,  mount- 
ains which  simply  rise  to  great  heights,  with  long,  unbroken 
slopes,  wide  expanses  of  lake,  and  forests  which  are  monot- 
onous in  their  continued  thickness,  are  never  lovely  to  me. 
A  landscape  should  always  be  partly  vailed,  and  display 
only  half  its  charms. 

To  my  taste  the  finest  stretch  of  the  river  was  that  im- 
mediately above  Lake  Pepin ;  but  then,  at  this  point,  we 
had  all  the  glory  of  the  setting  sun.  It  was  like  fairy-land, 
so  bright  were  the  golden  hues,  so  fantastic  were  the  shapes 
of  the  hills,  so  broken  and  twisted  the  course  of  the  waters  ! 
But  the  noisy  steamer  went  groaning  up  the  narrow  pas- 
sages with  almost  unabated  speed,  and  left  the  fairy  land 
behind  all  too  quickly.  Then  the  bell  would  ring  for  tea, 
and  the  children  with  the  beef-steaks,  the  pickled  onions, 
and  the  light  fixings  would  all  come  over  again.  The  care- 
laden  mothers  would  tuck  the  bibs  under  the  chins  of  their 
tyrant  children,  and  some  embryo  senator  of  four  years  old 
would  listen  with  concentrated  attention  while  the  negro 
servant  recapitulated  to  him  the  delicacies  of  the  supper- 
table,  in  order  that  he  might  make  his  choice  with  due  con- 
sideration. "Beef-steak,"  the  embryo  four-year  old  senator 
would  lisp,  "and  stewed  potato,  and  buttered  toast,  and 
corn-cake,  and  coffee, — and — and — and — mother,  mind  you 
get  me  the  pickles." 

St.  Paul  enjoys  the  double  privilege  of  being  the  com- 
mercial and  political  capital  of  Minnesota.  The  same  is 
the  case  with  Boston,  in  Massachusetts,  but  I  do  not  re- 
member another  instance  in  which  it  is  so.  It  is  built  on 
the  eastern  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  though  the  bulk  of  the 
State  lies  to  the  west  of  the  river.  It  is  noticeable  as  the 
spot  up  to  which  the  river  is  navigable.  Immediately 


156 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


above  St.  Paul  there  are  narrow  rapids  up  which  no  boat 
can  pass.  North  of  this  continuous  navigation  does  not 
go ;  but  from  St.  Paul  down  to  New  Orleans  and  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  it  is  uninterrupted.  The  distance  to  St.  Louis 
in  Missouri,  a  town  built  below  the  confluence  of  the  tliree 
rivers,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  and  Illinois,  is  900  miles; 
and  then  the  navigable  waters  down  to  the  Gulf  wash  a 
southern  country  of  still  greater  extent.  No  river  on  the 
face  of  the  globe  forms  a  highway  for  the  produce  of  so 
wide  an  extent  of  agricultural  land.  The  Mississippi,  with 
its  tributaries,  carried  to  market,  before  the  war,  the  pro- 
duce of  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Illinois,  Indiana, 
Ohio,  Kentuclvy,  Tennessee,  Missouri,  Kansas,  Arkansas, 
Mississippi,  and  Louisiana.  This  country  is  larger  than 
England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Holland,  Belgium,  France,  Ger- 
many, and  Spain  together,  and  is  undoubtedly  composed  of 
much  more  fertile  land.  The  States  named  comprise  the 
great  center  valley  of  the  continent,  and  are  the  farming 
lands  and  garden  grounds  of  the  Western  World.  He  who 
has  not  seen  corn  on  the  ground  in  Illinois  or  Minnesota, 
does  not  know  to  what  extent  the  fertility  of  land  may  go, 
or  how  great  may  be  the  weight  of  cereal  crops.  And  for 
all  this  the  Mississippi  was  the  high-road  to  market.  When 
the  crop  of  1861  was  garnered,  this  high-road  was  stopped 
by  the  war.  What  suffering  this  entailed  on  the  South  I 
will  not  here  stop  to  say,  but  on  the  West  the  effect  was 
terrible.  Corn  was  in  such  plenty — Indian-corn,  that  is, 
or  maize — that  it  was  not  worth  the  farmer's  while  to  pre- 
pare it  for  market.  When  I  was  in  Illinois,  the  second 
quality  of  Indian-corn,  when  shelled,  was  not  worth  more 
than  from  eight  to  ten  cents  a  bushel.  But  the  shelling  and 
preparation  is  laborious,  and  in  some  instances  it  was  found 
better  to  burn  it  for  fuel  than  to  sell  it.  Respecting  the 
export  of  corn  from  the  West,  I  must  say  a  further  word  or 
two  in  the  next  chapter ;  but  it  seemed  to  be  indispensable 
that  I  should  point  out  here  how  great  to  the  United  States 
is  the  need  of  the  Mississippi.  Nor  is  it  for  corn  and 
wheat  only  that  its  waters  are  needed.  Timber,  lead,  iron, 
coal,  pork — all  find,  or  should  find,  their  exit  to  the  world  at 
large  by  this  road.  There  are  towns  on  it,  and  on  its  trib- 
utaries, already  holding  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  number  of  Cincinnati  exceeds 
that,  as  also  does  the  number  of  St.  Louis.    Under  these 


ST.  PAUL. 


157 


circumstances  it  is  not  wonderful  that  tlie  States  should 
wish  to  keep  in  their  own  hands  the  navigation  of  this 
river. 

It  is  not  wonderful.  But  it  will  not,  I  think,  be  admit- 
ted by  the  politicians  of  the  world  that  the  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi  need  be  closed  against  the  West,  even  though 
the  Southern  States  should  succeed  in  raising  themselves  to 
the  power  and  dignity  of  a  separate  nationality.  It  the 
waters  of  the  Danube  be  not  open  to  Austria,  it  is  through 
the  fault  of  Austria.  That  the  subject  will  be  one  of  trou- 
ble, no  man  can  doubt;  and  of  course  it  would  be  well  for 
the  North  to  avoid  that,  or  any  other  trouble.  In  the  mean 
time  the  importance  of  this  right  of  way  must  be  admitted; 
and  it  must  be  admitted,  also,  that  whatever  may  be  the 
ultimate  resolve  of  the  North,  it  will  be  very  difficult  to 
reconcile  the  West  to  a  divided  dominion  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. 

St.  Paul  contains  about  14,000  inhabitants,  and,  like  all 
other  American  towns,  is  spread  over  a  surface  of  ground 
adapted  to  the  accommodation  of  a  very  extended  popula- 
tion. As  it  is  belted  on  one  side  by  the  river,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  bluffs  which  accompany  the  course  of  the 
river,  the  site  is  pretty,  and  almost  romantic.  Here  also 
we  found  a  great  hotel,  a  huge,  square  building,  such  as  we 
in  England  might  perhaps  place  near  to  a  railway  terminus 
in  such  a  city  as  Glasgow  or  Manchester,  but  on  which  no 
living  Englishman  would  expend  his  money  in  a  town  even 
five  times  as  big  again  as  St.  Paul.  Everything  was  suffi- 
ciently good,  and  much  more  than  sufficiently  plentiful.  The 
whole  thing  went  on  exactly  as  hotels  do  down  in  Massa- 
chusetts or  the  State  of  New  York.  Look  at  the  map  and 
see  where  St.  Paul  is.  Its  distance  from  all  known  civili- 
zation— all  civilization  that  has  succeeded  in  obtaining  ac- 
quaintance with  the  world  at  large — is  very  great.  Even 
American  travelers  do  not  go  up  there  in  great  numbers, 
excepting  those  who  intend  to  settle  there.  A  stray  sports- 
man or  two,  American  or  English,  as  the  case  may  be, 
makes  his  way  into  Minnesota  for  the  sake  of  shooting,  and 
pushes  on  up  through  St.  Paul  to  the  Red  River.  Some 
few  adventurous  spirits  visit  the  Indian  settlements,  and 
pass  over  into  the  unsettled  regions  of  Dacotah  and  Wash- 
ington Territory.  But  there  is  no  throng  of  traveling. 
Nevertheless,  a  hotel  has  been  built  there  capable  of  hold- 

14 


158 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing  three  hundred  guests,  and  other  hotels  exist  in  the 
neighborhood,  one  of  which  is  even  larger  than  that  at  St. 
Paul.  AVho  can  come  to  them,  and  create  even  a  hope  that 
such  an  enterprise  may  be  remunerative?  In  America  it  is 
seldom  more  than  hope,  for  one  always  hears  that  such 
enterprises  fail. 

"\^  hen  I  was  there  the  war  was  in  hand,  and  it  was  hardly 
to  be  expected  that  any  hotel  should  succeed.  The  landlord 
told  me  that  he  held  it  at  the  present  time  for  a  very  low 
rent,  and  that  he  could  just  manage  to  keep  it  open  without 
loss.  The  war  which  hindered  people  from  traveling,  and 
in  that  way  injured  the  innkeepers,  also  hindered  people 
from  housekeeping,  and  reduced  them  to  the  necessity  of 
boarding  out,  by  which  the  innkeepers  were  of  course  ben- 
efited. At  St.  Paul  I  found  that  the  majority  of  the  guests 
were  inhabitants  of  the  town,  boarding  at  the  hotel,  and 
thus  dispensing  with  the  cares  of  a  separate  establishment. 
I  do  not  know  what  was  charged  for  such  accommodation 
at  St,  Paul,  but  I  have  come  across  large  houses  at  which 
a  single  man  could  get  all  that  he  required  for  a  dollar  a 
day.  Now  Americans  are  great  consumers,  especially  at 
hotels,  and  all  that  a  man  requires  includes  three  hot  meals, 
with  a  choice  from  about  two  dozen  dishes  at  each. 

From  St.  Paul  there  are  two  waterfalls  to  be  seen,  which 
we,  of  course,  visited.  We  crossed  the  river  at  Fort  Snell- 
ing,  a  rickety,  ill-conditioned  building  standing  at  the  con- 
fluence of  the  Minnesota  and  Mississippi  Rivers,  built 
there  to  repress  the  Indians.  It  is,  I  take  it,  very  neces- 
sary, especially  at  the  present  moment,  as  the  Indians  seem 
to  require  repressing.  They  have  learned  that  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Federal  government  has  been  called  to  the  war, 
and  have  become  bold  in  consequence.  When  I  was  at  St. 
Paul  I  heard  of  a  party  of  Englishmen  who  had  been 
robbed  of  everything  they  possessed,  and  was  informed 
that  the  farmers  in  the  distant  parts  of  the  State  were  by 
no  means  secure.  The  Indians  are  more  to  be  pitied  than 
the  farmers.  They  are  turning  against  enemies  who  will 
neither  forgive  nor  forget  any  injuries  done.  When  the 
war  is  over  they  will  be  improved,  and  polished,  and  an- 
nexed, till  no  Indian  will  hold  an  acre  of  land  in  Minne- 
sota. At  present  Fort  Siielling  is  the  nucleus  of  a  recruiting 
camp.  On  the  point  between  the  bluffs  of  the  two  rivers 
there  is  a  plain,  immediately  in  front  of  the  fort,  and  there 


ST.  ANTHONY. 


159 


we  saw  the  newly-joined  Minnesota  recruits  going  through 
their  first  military  exercises.  They  were  in  detachments 
of  twenties,  and  were  rude  enough  at  their  goose  step. 
The  matter  which  struck  me  most  in  looking  at  them  was 
the  difference  of  condition  which  I  observed  in  the  men. 
There  were  the  country  lads,  fresh  from  the  farms,  such  as 
we  see  following  the  recruiting  sergeant  through  English 
towns;  but  there  were  also  men  in  black  coats  and  black 
trowsers,  with  thin  boots,  and  trimmed  beards — beards 
which  had  been  trimmed  till  very  lately;  and  some  of  them 
with  beards  which  showed  that  they  were  no  longer  young. 
It  was  inexpressibly  melancholy  to  see  such  men  as  these 
twisting  and  turning  about  at  the  corporal's  word,  each 
handling  some  stick  in  his  hand  in  lieu  of  weapon.  Of 
course,  they  were  more  awkward  than  the  boys,  even 
though  they  were  twice  more  assiduous  in  their  efforts. 
Of  course,  they  were  sad  and  wretched.  I  saw  men  there 
that  were  very  wretched  —  all  but  heart-broken,  if  one 
might  judge  from  their  faces.  They  should  not  have  been 
there  handling  sticks,  and  moving  their  unaccustomed  legs 
in  cramped  paces.  They  were  as  razors,  for  which  no  bet- 
ter purpose  could  be  found  than  the  cutting  of  blocks. 
When  such  attempts  are  made  the  block  is  not  cut,  but  the 
razor  is  spoiled.  Most  unlit  for  the  commencement  of  a 
soldier's  life  were  some  that  I  saw  there,  but  I  do  not  doubt 
that  they  had  been  attracted  to  the  work  by  the  one  idea 
of  doing  something  for  their  country  in  its  trouble. 

From  Fort  Snelling  we  went  on  to  the  Falls  of  Minne- 
haha. Minnehaha,  laughing  water.  Such,  I  believe,  is  the 
interpretation.  The  name  in  this  case  is  more  imposing 
than  the  fall.  It  is  a  pretty  little  cascade,  and  might  do 
for  a  picnic  in  fine  weather,  but  it  is  not  a  waterfall  of 
which  a  man  can  make  much  when  found  so  far  away  from 
home.  Going  on  from  Minnehaha  we  came  to  Minne- 
apolis, at  which  place  there  is  a  fine  suspension  bridge 
across  the  river,  just  above  the  falls  of  St.  Anthony  and 
leading  to  the  town  of  that  name.  Till  I  got  there  I 
could  hardly  believe  that  in  these  days  there  should  be  a 
living  village  called  Minneapolis  by  living  men.  I  pre- 
sume I  should  describe  it  as  a  town,  for  it  has  a  munici- 
pality, and  a  post-ofQce,  and,  of  course,  a  large  hotel.  The 
interest  of  the  place,  however,  is  in  the  saw-mills.  On  the 
opposite  side  of  the  water,  at  St.  Anthony,  is  another  very 


IGO 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


large  hotel — and  also  a  smaller  one.  The  smaller  one  may 
be  about  the  size  of  the  lirst-elass  hotels  at  Cheltenham  or 
Leamington.  They  were  botli  closed,  and  there  seemed  to 
be  but  little  prospect  that  either  would  be  opened  till  the 
war  should  be  over.  The  saw-mills,  however,  were  at  full 
work,  and  to  ray  eyes  were  extremely  picturesque.  I  had 
been  told  that  the  beauty  of  the  falls  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  mills.  Indeed,  all  who  had  spoken  to  me  about  St. 
Anthony  had  said  so.  But  I  did  not  agree  with  them. 
Here,  as  at  Ottawa,  the  charm  in  fact  consists,  not  in  an 
uninterrupted  shoot  of  water,  but  io  a  succession  of  rapids 
over  a  bed  of  broken  rocks.  Among  these  rocks  logs  of 
loose  timber  are  caught,  which  have  escaped  from  their 
proper  courses,  and  here  they  lie,  heaped  up  in  some  places, 
and  constructing  themselves  into  bridges  in  others,  till  the 
freshets  of  the  spring  carry  them  off.  The  timber  is  gen- 
erally brought  down  in  logs  to  St.  Anthony,  is  sawn  there, 
and  then  sent  down  the  Mississippi  in  large  rafts.  These 
rafts  on  other  rivers  are,  I  think,  generally  made  of  un- 
sawn  timber.  Such  logs  as  have  escaped  in  the  manner 
above  described  are  recognized  on  their  passage  down  the 
river  by  their  marks,  and  are  made  up  separately,  the  orig- 
inal owners  receiving  the  value — or  not  receiving  it  as  the 
case  may  be.  "There  is  quite  a  trade  going  on  with  the 
loose  lumber,"  my  informant  told  me.  And  from  his  tone  I 
was  led  to  suppose  that  he  regarded  the  trade  as  suflQciently 
lucrative,  if  not  peculiarly  honest. 

There  is  very  much  in  the  mode  of  life  adopted  by  the 
settlers  in  these  regions  which  creates  admiration.  The 
people  are  all  intelligent.  They  are  energetic  and  specula- 
tive, conceiving  grand  ideas,  and  carrying  them  out  almost 
with  the  rapidity  of  magic.  A  suspension  bridge  half  a 
mile  long  is  erected,  while  in  England  we  should  be  fasten- 
ing together  a  few  planks  for  a  foot  passage.  Progress, 
mental  as  well  as  material,  is  the  demand  of  the  people 
generally.  Everybody  understands  everything,  and  every- 
body intends  sooner  or  later  to  do  everything.  All  this  is 
very  grand;  but  then  there  is  a  terrible  drawback.  One 
hears  on  every  side  of  intelligence,  but  one  hears  also  on 
every  side  of  dishonesty.  Talk  to  whom  you  will,  of 
whom  you  will,  and  you  will  hear  some  tale  of  successful 
or  unsuccessful  swindling.  It  seems  to  be  the  recognized 
rule  of  commerce  in  the  far  West  that  men  shall  go  into 


WOOD-CUTTERS  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI.  IGI 


the  world's  markets  prepared  to  cheat  and  to  be  cheated. 
It  may  be  said  that  as  long  as  this  is  acknowledged  and 
understood  on  all  sides,  no  harm  will  be  done.  It  is  equally 
fair  for  all.  When  I  was  a  child  there  used  to  be  certain 
games  at  which  it  was  agreed  in  beginning  either  that 
there  should  be  cheating  or  that  there  should  not.  It  may 
be  said  that  out  there  in  the  Western  States,  men  agree  to 
play  the  cheating  game;  and  that  the  cheating  game  has 
more  of  interest  in  it  than  the  other.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, they  who  agree  to  play  this  game  on  a  large  scale  do 
not  keep  outsiders  altogether  out  of  the  playground.  In- 
deed, outsiders  become  very  welcome  to  them;  and  then  it 
is  not  pleasant  to  hear  the  tone  in  which  such  outsiders 
speak  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  sport  to  which  they  have 
been  introduced.  When  a  beginner  in  trade  finds  himself 
furnished  with  a  barrel  of  wooden  nutmegs,  the  joke  is  not 
so  good  to  him  as  to  the  experienced  merchant  who  sup- 
plies him.  This  dealing  in  wooden  nutmegs,  this  selling 
of  things  which  do  not  exist,  and  buying  of  goods  for 
which  no  price  is  ever  to  be  given,  is  an  institution  which 
is  much  honored  in  the  West.  We  call  it  swindling — and 
so  do  they.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  in  the  Western 
States  the  word  hardly  seemed  to  leave  the  same  impress 
on  the  mind  that  it  does  elsewhere. 

On  our  return  down  the  river  we  passed  La  Crosse,  at 
which  we  had  embarked,  and  went  down  as  far  as  Dubuque 
in  Iowa.  On  our  way  down  we  came  to  grief  and  broke 
one  of  our  paddle-wheels  to  pieces.  We  had  no  special 
accident.  We  struck  against  nothing  above  or  below 
water.  But  the  wheel  went  to  pieces,  and  we  laid  to  on 
the  river  side  for  the  greater  part  of  a  day  while  the  neces- 
sary repairs  were  being  made.  Delay  in  traveling  is  usually 
an  annoyance,  because  it  causes  the  unsettlement  cf  a  set- 
tled purpose.  But  the  loss  of  the  day  did  us  no  harm,  and 
our  accident  had  happened  at  a  very  pretty  spot.  I  climbed 
up  to  the  top  of  the  nearest  bluff,  and  walked  back  till  I 
came  to  the  open  country,  and  also  went  up  and  down  the 
river  banks,  visiting  the  cabins  of  two  settlers  who  live 
there  by  supplying  wood  to  the  river  steamers.  One  of 
these  was  close  to  the  spot  at  which  we  were  lying;  and 
yet  though  most  of  our  passengers  came  on  shore,  I  was 
the  only  one  who  spoke  to  the  inmates  of  the  cabin.  These 
people  must  live  there  almost  in  desolation  from  one  year's 

14* 


1C2 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


end  to  another.  Once  in  a  fortnight  or  so  they  go  up  to  a 
market  town  in  their  small  boats,  but  beyond  that  they  can 
have  little  intercourse  with  their  fellow-creatures.  Never- 
theless none  of  these  dwellers  by  the  river  side  came  out  to 
speak  to  the  men  and  women  who  were  lounging  about 
from  eleven  in  the  morning  till  four  in  the  afternoon ;  nor 
did  one  of  the  passengers,  except  myself,  knock  at  the  door 
or  enter  the  cabin,  or  exchange  a  word  with  those  who 
lived  there. 

I  spoke  to  the  master  of  the  house,  whom  I  met  outside, 
and  he  at  once  asked  me  to  come  in  and  sit  down.  I  found 
his  father  there  and  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  brother,  and 
two  young  children.  The  wife,  who  was  cooking,  was  a 
very  pretty,  pale  young  woman,  who,  however,  could  have 
circulated  round  her  stove  more  conveniently  had  her  crino- 
line been  of  less  dimensions.  She  bade  me  welcome  very 
prettily,  and  went  on  with  her  cooking,  talking  the  while, 
as  though  she  were  in  the  habit  of  entertaining  guests  in 
that  way  daily.  The  old  woman  sat  in  a  corner  knitting — 
as  old  women  always  do.  The  old  man  lounged  with  a 
grandchild  on  his  knee,  and  the  master  of  the  house  threw 
himself  on  the  floor  while  the  other  child  crawled  over  him. 
There  was  no  stiffness  or  uneasiness  in  their  manners,  nor 
was  there  anything  approaching  to  that  republican  rough- 
ness which  so  often  operates  upon  a  poor,  well-intending 
Englishman  like  a  slap  on  the  cheek.  I  sat  there  for  about 
an  hour,  and  when  I  had  discussed  with  them  English 
politics  and  the  bearing  of  English  politics  upon  the  Amer- 
ican war,  they  told  me  of  their  own  affairs.  Food  was  very 
plenty,  but  life  was  very  hard.  Take  the  year  through,  each 
man  could  not  earn  above  half  a  dollar  a  day  by  cutting 
wood.  This,  however,  they  owned,  did  not  take  up  all 
their  time.  Working  on  favorable  wood  on  favorable  days 
they  could  each  earn  two  dollars  a  day;  but  these  favor- 
able circumstances  did  not  come  together  very  often.  They 
did  not  deal  with  the  boats  themselves,  and  the  profits  were 
eaten  up  by  the  middleman.  He,  the  middleman,  had  a 
good  thing  of  it,  because  he  could  cheat  the  captains  of  the 
boats  in  the  measurement  of  the  wood.  The  chopper  was 
obliged  to  supply  a  genuine  cord  of  logs — true  measure. 
But  the  man  who  took  it  off  in  the  barge  to  the  steamer 
could  so  pack  it  that  fifteen  true  cords  would  make  twenty- 
two  false  cords.    "It  cuts  up  into  a  fine  trade,  you  see, 


WOOD-CUTTERS  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 


103 


sir,"  said  tlie  young  man,  as  he  stroked  back  the  little  girl's 
hair  from  her  forehead.  "But  the  captains  of  course  must 
find  it  out,"  said  I.  This  lie  acknowledged,  but  argued 
that  the  captains  on  this  account  insisted  on  buying  the 
wood  so  much  cheaper,  and  that  the  loss  all  came  upon  the 
chopper.  I  tried  to  teach  him  that  the  remedy  lay  in  his 
own  hands,  and  the  three  men  listened  to  me  quite  patiently 
while  I  explained  to  them  how  they  should  carry  on  their 
own  trade.  But  the  young  father  had  the  last  word.  "I 
guess  we  don't  get  above  the  fifty  cents  a  day  any  way." 
He  knew  at  least  where  the  shoe  pinched  him.  He  was  a 
handsome,  manly,  noble-looking  fellow,  tall  and  thin,  with 
black  hair  and  bright  eyes.  But  he  had  the  hollow  look 
about  his  jaws,  and  so  had  his  wife,  and  so  had  his  brother. 
They  all  owned  to  fever  and  ague.  They  had  a  touch  of  it 
most  years,  and  sometimes  pretty  sharply.  "It  was  a  coarse 
place  to  live  in,"  the  old  woman  said,  "but  there  was  no 
one  to  meddle  with  them,  and  she  guessed  that  it  suited." 
They  had  books  and  newspapers,  tidy  delf,  and  clean  glass 
upon  their  shelves,  and  undoubtedly  provisions  in  plenty. 
Whether  fever  and  ague  yearly,  and  cords  of  wood  stretched 
from  fifteen  to  twenty-two  are  more  than  a  set-off  for  these 
good  things,  I  will  leave  every  one  to  decide  according  to 
his  own  taste. 

In  another  cabin  I  found  women  and  children  only,  and 
one  of  the  children  was  in  the  last  stage  of  illness.  But 
nevertheless  the  woman  of  the  house  seemed  glad  to  see  me, 
and  talked  cheerfully  as  long  as  I  would  remain.  She  in- 
quired what  had  happened  to  the  vessel,  but  it  had  never 
occurred  to  her  to  go  out  and  see.  Her  cabin  was  neat  and 
well  furnished,  and  there  also  I  saw  newspapers  and  Har- 
per's everlasting  magazine.  She  said  it  was  a  coarse,  des- 
olate place  for  living,  but  that  she  could  raise  almost  any- 
thing in  her  garden. 

I  could  not  then  understand,  nor  can  I  now  understand, 
why  none  of  the  numerous  passengers  out  of  the  boat 
should  have  entered  those  cabins  except  myself,  and  why 
the  inmates  of  the  cabins  should  not  have  come  out  to  speak 
to  any  one.  Had  they  been  surly,  morose  people,  made 
silent  by  the  specialties  of  their  life,  it  would  have  been  ex- 
plicable ;  but  they  were  delighted  to  talk  and  to  listen.  The 
fact,  I  take  it,  is  that  the  people  are  all  harsh  to  each  other. 
They  do  not  care  to  go  out  of  their  way  to  speak  to  any 


164 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


one  unless  something  is  to  be  gained.  They  say  that  two 
Englishmen  meeting  in  the  desert  would  not  speak  unless 
they  were  introduced.  The  farther  I  travel  the  less  true 
do  I  find  this  of  Englishmen,  and  the  more  true  of  other 
people. 


CHAPTER  XL 

CERES  AMERICANA. 

We  stopped  at  the  Julien  House,  Dubuque.  Dubuque 
is  a  city  in  Iowa,  on  the  western  shore  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  as  the  names  both  of  the  town  and  of  the  hotel  sounded 
French  in  my  ears,  I  asked  for  an  explanation.  I  was  then 
told  that  Julien  Dubuque,  a  Canadian  Frenchman,  had  been 
buried  on  one  of  the  bluffs  of  the  river  within  the  precincts 
of  the  present  town ;  that  he  had  been  the  first  white  set- 
tler in  Iowa,  and  had  been  the  only  man  who  had  ever  pre- 
vailed upon  the  Indians  to  work.  Among  them  he  had 
become  a  great  "  Medicine,"  and  seems  for  awhile  to  have 
had  absolute  power  over  them.  He  died,  I  think,  in  1800, 
and  was  buried  on  one  of  the  hills  over  the  river.  "He 
was  a  bold,  bad  man,"  my  informant  told  me,  "and  com- 
mitted every  sin  under  heaven.  But  he  made  the  Indians 
work." 

Lead  mines  are  the  glory  of  Dubuque,  and  very  large 
sums  of  money  have  been  made  from  them.  I  was  taken 
out  to  see  one  of  them,  and  to  go  down  it;  but  we  found, 
not  altogether  to  my  sorrow,  that  the  works  had  been 
stopped  on  account  of  the  water.  No  effort  has  been  made 
in  any  of  these  mines  to  subdue  the  water,  nor  has  steam 
been  applied  to  the  working  of  them.  The  lodes  have  been 
so  rich  with  lead  that  the  speculators  have  been  content  to 
take  out  the  metal  that  was  easily  reached,  and  to  go  off  in 
search  of  fresh  ground  when  disturbed  by  water.  "And 
are  wages  here  paid  pretty  punctually?"  I  asked.  "Well, 
a  man  has  to  be  smart,  you  know."    And  then  my  friend 


AMERICAN  FRUIT. 


165 


went  on  to  acknowledge  that  it  would  be  better  for  the 
country  if  smartness  were  not  so  essential. 

Iowa  has  a  population  of  674,000  souls,  and  in  October, 
1861,  had  already  mustered  eighteen  regiments  of  one  thou- 
sand men  each.  Such  a  population  would  give  probably 
170,000  men  capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  therefore  the 
number  of  soldiers  sent  had  already  amounted  to  more  than 
a  decimation  of  the  available  strength  of  the  State.  When 
we  were  at  Dubuque,  nothing  was  talked  of  but  the  army. 
It  seemed  that  mines,  coal-pits,  and  corn-fields  were  all  of 
no  account  in  comparison  with  the  war.  How  many  regi- 
ments could  be  squeezed  out  of  the  State,  was  the  one  ques- 
tion which  filled  all  minds ;  and  the  general  desire  was  that 
such  regiments  should  be  sent  to  the  Western  army,  to  swell 
the  triumph  which  was  still  expected  for  General  Fremont, 
and  to  assist  in  sweeping  slavery  out  into  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico. The  patriotism  of  the  West  has  been  quite  as  keen 
as  that  of  the  North,  and  has  produced  results  as  mem- 
orable ;  but  it  has  sprung  from  a  different  source,  and  been 
conducted  and  animated  by  a  different  sentiment.  National 
greatness  and  support  of  the  law  have  been  the  idea  of  the 
North;  national  greatness  and  abolition  of  slavery  have 
been  those  of  the  West.  How  they  are  to  agrae  as  to 
terms  when  between  them  they  have  crushed  the  South — 
that  is  the  difficulty. 

At  Dubuque  in  Iowa,  I  ate  the  best  apple  that  I  ever 
encountered.  I  make  that  statement  with  the  purpose  of 
doing  justice  to  the  Americans  on  a  matter  which  is  to  them 
one  of  considerable  importance.  Americans,  as  a  rule,  do 
not  believe  in  English  apples.  They  declare  that  there  are 
none,  and  receive  accounts  of  Devonshire  cider  with  mani- 
fest incredulity.  ''But  at  any  rate  there  are  no  apples  in 
England  equal  to  ours."  That  is  an  assertion  to  which  an 
Englishman  is  called  upon  to  give  an  absolute  assent ;  and 
I  hereby  give  it.  Apples  so  excellent  as  some  which  were 
given  to  us  at  Dubuque  I  have  never  eaten  in  England. 
There  is  a  great  jealousy  respecting  all  the  fruits  of  the 
earth.  "Your  peaches  are  fine  to  look  at,"  was  said  to  me,  , 
"but  they  have  no  flavor."  This  was  the  assertion  of  a  lady, 
and  I  made  no  answer.  My  idea  had  been  that  American 
peaches  had  no  flavor ;  that  French  peaches  had  none ;  that 
those  of  Italy  had  none ;  that  little  as  there  might  be  of 
which  England  could  boast  with  truth,  she  might  at  any 


106 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


rate  boast  of  her  peaclies  without  fear  of  contradiction. 
Indeed,  my  idea  had  been  that  good  peaclies  were  to  be  got 
in  England  only.  I  am  beginning  to  doubt  whether  my  be- 
lief on  the  matter  has  not  been  the  product  of  insular  igno- 
rance and  idolatrous  self-worship.  It  may  be  that  a  peach 
should  be  a  combination  of  an  apple  and  a  turnip.  "My 
great  objection  to  your  country,  sir,"  said  another,  "is  that 
you  have  got  no  vegetables."  Had  he  told  me  that  we  had 
got  no  sea-board,  or  no  coals,  he  would  not  have  surprised 
me  more.  No  vegetables  in  England  I  I  could  not  restrain 
myself  altogether,  and  replied  by  a  confession  "that  we 
'raised'  no  squash."  Squash  is  the  pulp  of  the  pumpkin, 
and  is  much  used  in  the  States,  both  as  a  vegetable  and  for 
pies.  No  vegetables  in  England  !  Did  my  surprise  arise 
from  the  insular  ignorance  and  idolatrous  self-worship  of  a 
Britisher,  or  was  my  American  friend  laboring  under  a  de- 
lusion ?  Is  Covent  Garden  well  supplied  with  vegetables, 
or  is  it  not?  Do  we  cultivate  our  kitchen-gardens  with 
success,  or  am  I  under  a  delusion  on  that  subject  ?  Do  I 
dream,  or  is  it  true  that  out  of  my  own  little  patches  at 
home  I  have  enough,  for  all  domestic  purposes,  of  peas, 
beans,  broccoli,  cauliflower,  celery,  beet-root,  onions,  car- 
rots, parsnips,  turnips,  sea-kale,  asparagus,  French  beans, 
artichokes,  vegetable  marrow,  cucumbers,  tomatoes,  endive, 
lettuce,  as  well  as  herbs  of  many  kinds,  cabbages  throughout 
the  year,  and  potatoes  ?  No  vegetables  !  Had  the  gentle- 
man told  me  that  England  did  not  suit  him  because  we  had 
nothing  but  vegetables,  I  should  have  been  less  surprised. 

From  Dubuque,  on  the  western  shore  of  the  river,  we 
passed  over  to  Dunleath,  in  Illinois,  and  went  on  from  thence 
by  railway  to  Dixon.  I  was  induced  to  visit  this  not  very 
flourishing  town  by  a  desire  to  see  the  rolling  prairie  of 
Illinois,  and  to  learn  by  eyesight  something  of  the  crops  of 
corn  or  Indian  maize  which  are  produced  upon  the  land. 
Had  that  gentleman  told  me  that  we  knew  nothing  of  pro- 
ducing corn  in  England,  he  would  have  been  nearer  the 
mark ;  for  of  corn,  in  the  profusion  in  which  it  is  grown 
here,  we  do  not  know  much.  Better  land  than  the  prairies 
of  Illinois  for  cereal  crops  the  world's  surface  probably 
cannot  show.  And  here  there  has  been  no  necessity  for  the 
long  previous  labor  of  banishing  the  forest.  Enormous 
prairies  stretch  across  the  State,  into  which  the  plow  can  be 
put  at  once.    The  earth  is  rich  with  the  vegetation  of  thou- 


PRICE  OF  CORN.  iGt 

sands  of  years,  and  the  farmer's  return  is  given  to  him  with- 
out delay.  The  land  bursts  with  its  own  produce,  and  the 
plenty  is  such  that  it  creates  wasteful  carelessness  in  the 
gathering  of  the  crop.  It  is  not  worth  a  man's  while  to 
handle  less  than  large  quantities.  Up  in  Minnesota  I  had 
been  grieved  by  the  loose  manner  in  which  wheat  was 
treated.  I  have  seen  bags  of  it  upset  and  left  upon  the 
ground.  The  labor  of  collecting  it  was  more  than  it  was 
worth.  There  wheat  is  the  chief  crop,  and  as  the  lands 
become  cleared  and  cultivation  spreads  itself,  the  amount 
coming  down  the  Mississippi  will  be  increased  almost  to 
infinity.  The  price  of  wheat  in  Europe  will  soon  depend, 
not  upon  the  value  of  the  wheat  in  the  country  which  grows 
it,  but  on  the  power  and  cheapness  of  the  modes  which  may 
exist  for  transporting  it.  I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain 
the  exact  prices  with  reference  to  the  carriage  of  wheat 
from  St.  Paul  (the  capital  of  Minnesota)  to  Liverpool,  but 
I  have  done  so  as  regards  Indian-corn  from  the  State  of 
Illinois.  The  following  statement  will  show  what  propor- 
tion the  value  of  the  article  at  the  place  of  its  growth  bears 
to  the  cost  of  the  carriage ;  and  it  shows  also  how  enor- 
mous an  effect  on  the  price  of  corn  in  England  would  follow 
any  serious  decrease  in  the  cost  of  carriage : — 

A  bushel  of  Indian-corn  at  Bloomington,  in  Illinois, 


cost,  in  October,  1861    .  .  .  .10  cents. 

Freight  to  Chicago       .  .  .  .  10  " 

Storage      .  .  .  .  .  .       2  " 

Freight  from  Chicago  to  Buffalo  .  .  22 

Elevating,  and  canal  freight  to  New  York,         .  19 

Transfer  in  New  York  and  insurance  .  .  3  " 

Ocean  freight        .  .  ,  .  .  23 


Cost  of  a  bushel  of  Indian-corn  at  Liverpool  89  cents. 


Thus  corn  which  in  Liverpool  costs  3s.  lOd.  has  been  sold 
by  the  farmer  who  produced  it  for  5d.  I  It  is  probable  that 
no  great  reduction  can  be  expected  in  the  cost  of  ocean 
transit ;  but  it  will  be  seen  by  the  above  figures  that  out 
of  the  Liverpool  price  of  3s.  lOd.,  or  89  cents,  considerably 
more  than  half  is  paid  for  carriage  across  the  United  States. 
All  or  nearly  all  this  transit  is  by  water ;  and  there  can,  I 
think,  be  no  doubt  but  that  a  few  years  will  see  it  reduced 
by  fifty  per  cent.  In  October  last  the  Mississippi  was 
closed,  the  railways  had  not  rolling  stock  sufficient  for  their 


1G8 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


work,  the  crops  of  the  two  last  years  had  been  excessive, 
and  there  existed  the  necessity  of  sending  out  the  corn  be- 
fore the  internal  navigation  had  been  closed  by  frost.  The 
parties  who  had  the  transit  in  their  hands  put  their  heads 
together,  and  were  able  to  demand  any  prices  that  they 
pleased.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  cost  of  carrying  a  bushel 
of  corn  from  Chicago  to  Buffalo,  by  the  lakes,  was  within 
one  cent  of  the  cost  of  bringing  it  from  New  York  to  Liv- 
erpool. These  temporary  causes  for  high  prices  of  transit 
will  cease  ;  a  more  perfect  system  of  competition  between 
the  railways  and  the  water  transit  will  be  organized ;  and 
the  result  must  necessarily  be  both  an  increase  of  price  to 
the  producer  and  a  decrease  of  price  to  the  consumer.  It 
certainly  seems  that  the  produce  of  cereal  crops  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  increases  at  a 
faster  rate  than  population  increases.  Wheat  and  corn  are 
sown  by  the  thousand  acres  in  a  piece,  I  heard  of  one 
farmer  who  had  10,000  acres  of  corn.  Thirty  years  ago 
grain  and  flour  were  sent  Westward  out  of  the  State  of  New 
York  to  supply  the  wants  of  those  who  had  immigrated  into 
the  prairies ;  and  now  we  fii)d  that  it  will  be  the  destiny  of 
those  prairies  to  feed  the  universe.  Chicago  is  the  main 
point  of  exportation  Northwestward  from  Illinois,  and  at 
the  present  time  sends  out  from  its  granaries  more  cereal 
produce  than  any  other  town  in  the  world.  The  bulk  of 
this  passes,  in  the  shape  of  grain  or  flour,  from  Chicago  to 
Buffalo,  which  latter  place  is,  as  it  were,  a  gateway  leading 
from  the  lakes,  or  big  waters,  to  the  canals,  or  small  waters. 
I  give  below  the  amount  of  grain  and  flour  in  bushels  re- 
ceived into  Buff'alo  for  transit  in  the  month  of  October 
during  four  consecutive  years  : — 


October,  1858  . 
18--)9 

"     isno  . 

1861  . 


4,429,055  bushels. 
5,523,448 
.  6,500,804 
12,483,797 


In  18G0,  from  the  opening  to  the  close  of  navigation, 
30,837,032  bushels  of  grain  and  flour  passed  through  Buf- 
falo, In  18G1,  the  amount  received  up  to  the  31st  of  Octo- 
ber was  51,909,142  bushels.  As  the  navigation  would  be 
closed  during  the  month  of  November,  the  above  figures 
may  be  taken  as  representing  not  quite  the  whole  amount 
transported  for  the  year.  It  may  be  presumed  the  52,000,000 


BREADSTUFFS  AT  BUFFALO. 


1G9 


of  bushels,  as  quoted  above,  will  swell  itself  to  60,000,000. 
I  confess  that  to  my  own  mind  statistical  amounts  do  not 
bring  home  any  enduring  idea.  Fifty  million  bushels  of 
corn  and  flour  simply  seems  to  mean  a  great  deal.  It  is  a 
powerful  form  of  superlative,  and  soon  vanishes  away,  as  do 
other  superlatives  in  this  age  of  strong  words.  I  was  at 
Chicago  and  at  Buffalo  in  October,  18G1.  I  went  down  to 
the  granaries  and  climbed  up  into  the  elevators.  I  saw  the 
wheat  running  in  rivers  from  one  vessel  into  another,  and 
from  the  railroad  vans  up  into  the  huge  bins  on  the  top 
stores  of  the  warehouses — for  these  rivers  of  food  run  up 
hill  as  easily  as  they  do  down.  I  saw  the  corn  measured 
by  the  forty-bushel  measure  v/ith  as  much  ease  as  we 
measure  an  ounce  of  cheese  and  with  greater  rapidi'ty,  I 
ascertained  that  the  work  \fent  on,  week  day  and  Sunday, 
day  and  night,  incessantly — rivers  of  wheat  and  rivers  of 
maize  ever  running.  I  saw  the  men  bathed  in  corn  as  they 
distributed  it  in  its  flow.  I  saw  bios  by  the  score  laden  with 
wheat,  in  each  of  which  bins  there  was  space  for  a  comfort- 
able residence.  I  breathed  the  flour  and  drank  the  flour, 
and  felt  myself  to  be  enveloped  in  a  world  of  breadstuff. 
And  then  I  believed,  understood,  and  brought  it  home  to 
myself  as  a  fact  that  here  in  the  corn-lands  of  Michigan, 
and  amid  the  bluffs  of  Wisconsin,  and  on  the  high  table 
plains  of  Minnesota,  and  the  prairies  of  Illinois  had  God 
prepared  the  food  for  the  increasing  millions  of  the  Eastern 
World,  as  also  for  the  coming  millions  of  the  Western. 

I  do  not  find  many  minds  constituted  like  my  own,  and 
therefore  I  venture  to  publish  the  above  figures.  I  believe 
them  to  be  true  in  the  main  ;  and  they  will  show,  if  credited, 
that  the  increase  during  the  last  four  years  has  gone  on  with 
more  than  fabulous  rapidity.  For  myself,  I  own  that  those 
figures  would  have  done  nothing  unless  I  had  visited  the 
spot  myself.  A  man  cannot,  perhaps,  count  up  the  results 
of  such  a  work  by  a  quick  glance  of  his  eye,  nor  communi- 
cate with  precision  to  another  the  conviction  which  his  own 
short  experience  has  made  so  strong  within  himself ;  but  to 
himself  seeing  is  believing.  To  me  it  was  so  at  Chicago 
and  at  Bufi'alo.  I  began  then  to  know  what  it  was  for  a 
country  to  overflow  with  milk  and  honey,  to  burst  with  its 
own  fruits  and  be  smothered  by  its  own  riches.  From  St. 
Paul  down  the  Mississippi,  by  the  shores  of  Wisconsin  and 
Iowa ;  by  the  ports  on  Lake  Pepin ;  by  La  Crosse,  from 

15 


no 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


which  one  railway  runs  Eastward  ;  by  Prairie  du  Chien,  the 
terminus  of  a  second  ;  by  Dunleath,  Fulton,  and  Rock 
Island,  from  whence  three  other  lines  run  Eastward  ;  all 
through  that  wonderful  State  of  Illinois,  the  farmer's  glory ; 
along  the  ports  of  the  Great  Lakes  ;  through  Michigan, 
Indiana,  Ohio,  and  further  Pennsylvania,  up  to  Buffalo,  the 
great  gate  of  the  Western  Ceres,  the  loud  cry  was  this : 
"How  shall  we  rid  ourselves  of  our  corn  and  wheat  ?"  The 
result  has  been  the  passage  of  60,000,000  bushels  of  bread- 
stuffs  through  that  gate  in  one  year!  Let  those  who  are 
susceptible  of  statistics  ponder  that.  For  them  who  are  not 
I  can  only  give  this  advice  :  Let  them  go  to  Buffalo  next 
October,  and  look  for  themselves. 

In  regarding  the  above  figures,  and  the  increase  shown 
between  the  years  1860  and  1861,  it  must  of  course  be  borne 
in  mind  that,  during  the  latter  autumn,  no  corn  or  wheat 
was  carried  into  the  Southern  States,  and  that  none  was 
exported  from  New  Orleans  or  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. The  States  of  Mississippi,  Alabama,  and  Louisiana 
have  for  some  time  past  received  much  of  their  supplies 
from  the  Northwestern  lands ;  and  the  cutting  off  of  this 
current  of  consumption  has  tended  to  swell  the  amount  of 
grain  which  has  been  forced  into  the  narrow  channel  of 
Buffalo.  There  has  been  no  Southern  exit  allowed,  and 
the  Southern  appetite  has  been  deprived  of  its  food.  But 
taking  this  item  for  all  that  it  is  worth — or  taking  it,  as  it 
generally  will  be  taken,  for  much  more  than  it  can  be  worth 
— the  result  left  will  be  materially  the  same.  The  grand 
markets  to  which  the  Western  States  look  and  have  looked 
are  those  of  New  England,  New  York,  and  Europe.  Already 
corn  and  wheat  are  not  the  common  crops  of  New  England, 
Boston,  and  Hartford,  and  Lowell  are  fed  from  the  great 
Western  States.  The  State  of  New  York,  which,  thirty 
years  ago,  was  famous  chiefly  for  its  cereal  produce,  is  now 
fed  from  these  States.  New  York  City  would  be  starved 
if  it  depended  on  its  own  State;  and  it  will  soon  be  as  true 
that  England  would  be  starved  if  it  depended  on  itself.  It 
was  but  the  other  day  that  we  were  talking  of  free  trade  in 
corn  as  a  thing  desirable,  but  as  yet  doubtful — but  the  other 
day  that  Lord  Derby,  who  may  be  Prime  Minister  to-mor- 
row, and  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  may  be  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer to-morrow,  were  stoutly  of  opinion  that  the  corn 
laws  might  be  and  should  be  maintained — but  the  other  day 


CHICAGO. 


in 


that  the  same  opinion  was  held  with  confidence  by  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel,  who,  however,  when  the  day  for  tlie  change  came, 
was  not  ashamed  to  become  the  instrument  used  by  the 
people  for  their  repeal.  Events  in  these  days  march  so 
quickly  that  they  leave  men  behind ;  and  our  dear  old  Pro- 
tectionists at  home  will  have  grown  sleek  upon  American 
flour  before  they  have  realized  the  fact  that  they  are  no 
longer  fed  from  their  own  furrows. 

I  have  given  figures  merely  as  regards  the  trade  of  Buf- 
falo ;  but  it  must  not  be  presumed  that  Buffalo  is  the  only 
outlet  from  the  great  corn-lands  of  Northern  America.  In 
the  first  place,  no  grain  of  the  produce  of  Canada  finds  its 
way  to  Buffalo.  Its  exit  is  by  the  St.  Lawrence  or  by  the 
Grand  Trunk  Railway,  as  I  have  stated  when  speaking  of 
Canada.  And  then  there  is  the  passage  for  large  vessels 
from  the  upper  lakes  —  Lake  Michigan,  Lake  Huron,  and 
Lake  Erie — through  the  Welland  Canal,  into  Lake  Ontario, 
and  out  by  the  St.  Lawrence.  There  is  also  the  direct  com- 
munication from  Lake  Erie,  by  the  Is'ew  York  and  Erie 
Railway  to  New  York.  I  have  more  especially  alluded  to 
the  trade  of  Buffalo,  because  I  have  been  enabled  to  obtain 
a  reliable  return  of  the  quantity  of  grain  and  flour  which 
passes  through  that  town,  and  because  Buffalo  and  Chicago 
are  the  two  spots  which  are  becoming  most  famous  in  the 
cereal  history  of  the  Western  States. 

Everybody  has  a  map  of  North  America.  A  reference 
to  such  a  map  will  show  the  peculiar  position  of  Chicago. 
It  is  at  the  south  or  head  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  to  it  con- 
verge railways  from  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Illinois,  and  Indiana. 
At  Chicago  is  found  the  nearest  water  carriage  which  can 
be  obtained  for  the  produce  of  a  large  portion  of  these 
States.  From  Chicago  there  is  direct  water  conveyance 
round  through  the  lakes  to  Buffalo,  at  the  foot  of  Lake 
Erie.  At  Milwaukee,  higher  up  on  the  lake,  certain  lines 
of  railway  come  in,  joining  the  lake  to  the  Upper  Missis- 
sippi, and  to  the  wheat-lands  of  Minnesota.  Thence  the 
passage  is  round  by  Detroit,  which  is  the  port  for  the  pro- 
duce of  the  greatest  part  of  Michigan,  and  still  it  all  goes 
on  toward  Buffalo.  Then  on  Lake  Erie  there  are  the  ports 
of  Toledo,  Cleveland,  and  Erie.  At  the  bottom  of  Lake 
Erie  there  is  this  city  of  corn,  at  which  the  grain  and  flour 
are  transhipped  into  the  canal-boats  and  into  the  railway 
cars  for  New  York ;  and  there  is  also  the  Welland  Canal, 


112 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


through  which  large  vessels  pass  from  the  upper  lakes  with- 
out transhipment  of  their  cargo. 

I  have  said  above  that  corn — meaning  maize  or  Indian- 
corn — was  to  be  bought  at  Bloomington,  in  Illinois,  for  ten 
cents  (or  five  pence)  a  bushel.  I  found  this  also  to  be  the 
case  at  Dixon,  and  also  that  corn  of  inferior  quality  might 
be  bought  for  four  pence;  but  I  found  also  that  it  was  not 
worth  the  farmer's  while  to  shell  it  and  sell  it  at  such 
prices.  I  was  assured  that  farmers  were  burning  their  In- 
dian-corn in  some  places,  finding  it  more  available  to  them 
as  fuel  than  it  was  for  the  market.  The  labor  of  detaching 
a  bushel  of  corn  from  the  hulls  or  cobs  is  considerable,  as 
is  also  the  task  of  carrying  it  to  market.  I  have  known  po- 
tatoes in  Ireland  so  cheap  that  they  would  not  pay  for  dig- 
ging and  carrying  away  for  purposes  of  sale.  There  was 
then  a  glut  of  potatoes  in  Ireland;  and  in  the  same  way 
there  was,  in  the  autumn  of  1861,  a  glut  of  corn  in  the 
Western  States.  The  best  qualities  would  fetch  a  price, 
though  still  a  low  price ;  but  corn  that  was  not  of  the  best 
quality  was  all  but  worthless.  It  did  for  fuel,  and  was 
burned.  The  fact  was  that  the  produce  had  re-created  itself 
quicker  than  mankind  had  multiplied.  The  ingenuity  of 
man  had  not  worked  quick  enough  for  its  disposal.  The 
earth  had  given  forth  her  increase  so  abundantly  that  the 
lap  of  created  humanity  could  not  stretch  itself  to  hold  it. 
At  Dixon,  in  1861,  corn  cost  four  pence  a  bushel.  In  Ire- 
land, in  1848,  it  was  sold  for  a  penny  a  pound,  a  pound 
being  accounted  sufficient  to  sustain  life  for  a  day;  and  v>'e 
all  felt  that  at  that  price  food  was  brought  into  the  country 
cheaper  than  it  had  ever  been  brought  before. 

Dixon  is  not  a  town  of  much  apparent  prosperity.  It  is 
one  of  those  places  at  which  great  beginnings  have  been 
made,  but  as  to  which  the  deities  presiding  over  new  towns 
have  not  been  propitious.  Much  of  it  has  been  burned  down, 
and  more  of  it  has  never  been  built  up.  It  had  a  straggling, 
ill-conditioned,  uncommercial  aspect,  very  difi'erent  from  the 
look  of  Detroit,  Milwaukee,  or  St.  Paul.  There  was,  how- 
ever, a  great  hotel  there,  as  usual,  and  a  grand  bridge  over 
the  Rock  River,  a  tributary  of  the  Mississippi,  which  runs 
by  or  through  the  town.  I  found  that  life  might  be  main- 
tained on  very  cheap  terms  at  Dixon.  To  me,  as  a  passing 
traveler,  the  charges  at  the  hotel  were,  I  take  it,  the  same 
as  elsewhere.    But  I  learned  from  an  inmate  there  that  lie. 


AN  ILLINOIS  PRAIRIE. 


173 


with  his  wife  and  horse,  were  fed  and  cared  for  and  attended, 
for  two  dollars  (or  eight  shillings  and  four  pence)  a  day. 
This  included  a  private  sitting-room,  coals,  light,  and  all 
the  wants  of  life — as  my  informant  told  me — except  tobacco 
and  whisky.  Feeding  at  such  a  house  means  a  succession 
of  promiscuous  hot  meals,  as  often  as  the  digestion  of  the 
patient  can  face  them.  Now  I  do  not  know  any  local- 
ity where  a  man  can  keep  himself  and  his  wife,  with  all 
material  comforts  and  the  luxury  of  a  horse  and  carriage, 
on  cheaper  terms  than  that.  Whether  or  no  it  might  be 
worth  a  man's  while  to  live  at  all  at  such  a  place  as  Dixon, 
is  altogether  another  question. 

We  went  there  because  it  is  surrounded  by  the  prairie, 
and  out  into  the  prairie  we  had  ourselves  driven.  We  found 
some  difficulty  in  getting  away  from  the  corn,  though  we 
had  selected  this  spot  as  one  at  which  the  open  rolling 
prairie  was  specially  attainable.  As  long  as  I  could  see  a 
corn-field  or  a  tree  I  was  not  satisfied.  Nor,  indeed,  was  I 
satisfied  at  last.  To  have  been  thoroughly  on  the  prairie, 
and  in  the  prairie,  I  should  have  been  a  day's  journey  from 
tilled  land.  But  I  doubt  whether  that  could  now  be  done 
in  the  State  of  Illinois.  I  got  out  into  various  patches  and 
brought  away  specimens  of  corn — ears  bearing  sixteen  rows 
of  grain,  with  forty  grains  in  each  row,  each  ear  bearing  a 
meal  for  a  hungry  man. 

At  last  we  did  find  ourselves  on  the  prairie,  amid  the 
waving  grass,  with  the  land  rolling  on  before  us  in  a  succes- 
sion of  gentle  sweeps,  never  rising  so  as  to  impede  the 
view,  or  apparently  changing  in  its  general  level,  but  yet 
without  the  monotony  of  flatness.  We  were  on  the  prairie, 
but  still  I  felt  no  satisfaction.  It  was  private  propert}^, 
divided  among  holders  and  pastured  over  by  private  cattle. 
Salisbury  Plain  is  as  wild,  and  Dartmoor  almost  wilder. 
Deer,  they  told  me,  were  to  be  had  within  reach  of  Dixon, 
but  for  the  buffalo  one  has  to  go  much  farther  afield  than 
Illinois.  The  farmer  may  rejoice  in  Illinois,  but  the  hunter 
and  the  trapper  must  cross  the  big  rivers  and  pass  away 
into  the  Western  Territories  before  he  can  find  lands  wild 
enough  for  his  purposes.  My  visit  to  the  corn-fields  of 
Illinois  was  in  its  way  successful,  but  I  felt,  as  I  turned  my 
face  eastward  toward  Chicago,  that  I  had  no  right  to  boast 
that  I  had  as  yet  made  acquaintance  with  a  prairie. 

All  minds  were  turned  to  the  war,  at  Dixon  as  elsewhere. 
15* 


174 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


In  Illinois  the  men  boasted  that,  as  regards  the  war,  they 
were  the  leading  State  of  the  Union.  But  the  same  boast 
w^as  made  in  Indiana,  and  also  in  Massachusetts,  and  prob- 
ably in  half  the  States  of  the  North  and  West.  They,  the 
Illinoisians,  call  their  country  the  war-nest  of  the  West. 
The  population  of  the  State  is  1,700,000,  and  it  had  under- 
taken to  furnish  sixty  volunteer  regiments  of  1000  men 
each.  And  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  regiments, 
when  furnished,  are  really  full — absolutely  containing  the 
thousand  men  when  they  are  sent  away  from  the  parent 
States.  The  number  of  souls  above  named  will  give 
420,000  working  men,  and  if,  out  of  these,  60,000  are  sent 
to  the  war,  the  State,  which  is  almost  purely  agricultural, 
will  have  given  more  than  ane  man  in  eight.  When  I  was 
in  Illinois,  over  forty  regiments  had  already  been  sent — 
forty-six,  if  I  remember  rightly  —  and  there  existed  no 
doubt  whatever  as  to  the  remaining  number.  From  the 
next  State,  Indiana,  with  a  population  of  1,350,000,  giving 
something  less  than  350,000  working  men,  thirty-six  regi- 
ments had  been  sent.  I  fear  that  I  am  mentioning  these 
numbers  usque  ad  nauseam;  but  I  wish  to  impress  upon 
English  readers  the  magnitude  of  the  effort  made  by  the 
States  in  mustering  and  equipping  an  army  within  six  or 
seven  months  of  the  first  acknowledgment  that  such  an 
army  would  be  necessary.  The  Americans  have  complained 
bitterly  of  the  want  of  English  sympathy,  and  I  think  they 
have  been  weak  in  making  that  complaint.  But  I  would 
not  wish  that  they  should  hereafter  have  the  power  of  com- 
plaining of  a  want  of  English  justice.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  a  genuine  feeling  of  patriotism  was  aroused 
throughout  the  North  and  West,  and  that  men  rushed  into 
the  ranks  actuated  by  that  feeling,  men  for  whom  war  and 
army  life,  a  camp  and  fifteen  dollars  a  month,  would  not  of 
themselves  have  had  any  attraction.  It  came  to  that,  that 
young  men  were  ashamed  not  to  go  into  the  army.  This 
feeling  of  course  produced  coercion,  and  the  movement 
was  in  that  way  tyrannical.  There  is  nothing  more  tyran- 
nical than  a  strong  popular  feeling  among  a  democratic 
people.  During  the  period  of  enlistment  this  tyranny  was 
very  strong.  But  the  existence  of  such  a  tyranny  proves 
the  passion  and  patriotism  of  the  people.  It  got  the  bet- 
ter of  the  love  of  money,  of  the  love  of  children,  and  of 
the  love  of  progress.    Wives  who  v/ith  thoir  bairns  were 


CHICAGO. 


absolutely  dependent  on  their  husbands'  labors,  would  wish 
their  huslDands  to  be  at  the  war.  Not  to  conduce,  in  some 
special  way,  toward  the  war  ;  to  have  neither  father  there, 
nor  brother  nor  son;  not  to  have  lectured,  or  preached,  or 
written  for  the  war;  to  have  made  no  sacrifice  for  the  war, 
to  have  had  no  special  and  individual  interest  in  the  war, 
was  disgraceful.  One  sees  at  a  glance  the  tyranny  of  all 
this  in  such  a  country  as  the  States.  One  can  understand 
how  quickly  adverse  stories  would  spread  themselves  as  to 
the  opinion  of  any  man  who  chose  to  remain  tranquil  at 
such  a  time.  One  shudders  at  the  absolute  absence  of  true 
liberty  which  such  a  passion  throughout  a  democratic  coun- 
try must  engender.  But  he  who  has  observed  all  this  must 
acknowledge  that  that  passion  did  exist.  Dollars,  children, 
progress,  education,  and  political  rivalry  all  gave  way  to 
the  one  strong  national  desire  for  the  thrashing  and  crush- 
ing of  those  who  had  rebelled  against  the  authority  of  the 
stars  and  stripes. 

When  we  were  at  Dixon  they  were  getting  up  the  De- 
ment regiment.  The  attempt  at  the  time  did  not  seem  to 
be  prosperous,  and  the  few  men  who  had  been  collected  had 
about  them  a  forlorn,  ill-conditioned  look.  But  then,  as  I 
was  told,  Dixon  had  already  been  decimated  and  redeci- 
mated  by  former  recruiting  colonels.  Colonel  Dement,  from 
whom  the  regiment  was  to  be  named,  and  whose  military 
career  was  only  now  about  to  commence,  had  come  late  into 
the  field.  I  did  not  afterward  ascertain  what  had  been  his 
success,  but  I  hardly  doubt  that  he  did  ultimately  scrape 
together  his  thousand  men.  *  Why  don't  you  go  ?"  I  said  to 
a  burly  Irishman  who  was  driving  me.  "I'm  not  a  sound 
man,  yer  honor,"  said  the  Irishman;  "I'm  deficient  in  me 
liver."  Taking  the  Irishmen,  however,  throughout  the 
Union,  they  had  not  been  found  deficient  in  any  of  the 
necessaries  for  a  career  of  war.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
men  have  done  better  than  the  Irish  in  the  American  army. 

From  Dixon  we  went  to  Chicago.  Chicago  is  in  many 
respects  the  most  remarkable  city  among  all  the  remarkable 
cities  of  the  Union.  Its  growth  has  been  the  fastest  and 
its  success  the  most  assured.  Twenty-five  years  ago  there 
was  no  Chicago,  and  now  it  contains  120,000  inhabitants. 
Cincinnati,  on  the  Ohio,  and  St.  Louis,  at  the  junction  of 
the  Missouri  and  Mississippi,  are  larger  towns ;  but  they 
have  not  grown  large  so  quickly  nor  do  they  now  promise 


no 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


SO  excessive  a  development  of  commerce.  Chicago  may  be 
called  the  metropolis  of  American  corn — the  favorite  city 
haunt  of  the  American  Ceres.  The  goddess  seats  herself 
there  amid  the  dust  of  her  full  barns,  and  proclaims  herself 
a  goddess  ruling  over  things  political  and  philosophical  as 
well  as  agricultural.  Not  furrows  only  are  in  her  thoughts, 
but  free  trade  also  and  brotherly  love.  And  within  her  own 
bosom  there  is  a  boast  that  even  yet  she  will  be  stronger 
-•than  Mars.  In  Chicago  there  are  great  streets,  and  rows 
of  houses  fit  to  be  the  residences  of  a  new  Corn-Exchange 
nobility.  They  look  out  on  the  wide  lake  which  is  now  the 
highway  for  breadstufTs,  and  the  merchant,  as  he  shaves  at 
his  window,  see^  his  rapid  ventures  as  they  pass  away,  one 
after  the  other,  toward  the  East. 

I  went  over  one  great  grain  store  in  Chicago  possessed 
by  gentlemen  of  the  name  of  Sturgess  and  Buckenham.  It 
was  a  world  in  itself,  and  the  dustiest  of  all  the  worlds.  It 
contained,  when  I  was  there,  half  a  million  bushels  of  wheat 
— or  a  very  great  many,  as  I  might  say  in  other  language. 
But  it  was  not  as  a  storehouse  that  this  great  building  was 
so  remarkable,  but  as  a  channel  or  a  river-course  for  the 
flooding  freshets  of  corn.  It  is  so  built  that  both  railway 
vans  and  vessels  come  immediately  under  its  claws,  as  I  may 
call  the  great  trunks  of  the  elevators.  Out  of  the  railway 
vans  the  corn  and  wheat  is  clawed  up  into  the  building, 
and  down  similar  trunks  it  is  at  once  again  poured  out  into 
the  vessels.  I  shall  be  at  Buffalo  in  a  page  or  two,  and 
then  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  more  minutely  how  this  is 
done.  At  Chicago  the  corn  is  bought  and  does  change 
hands  ;  and  much  of  it,  therefore,  is  stored  there  for  some 
space  of  time,  shorter  or  longer  as  the  case  may  be.  When 
I  was  at  Chicago,  the  only  limit  to  the  rapidity  of  its  transit 
was  set  by  the  amount  of  boat  accommodation.  There  were 
not  bottoms  enough  to  take  the  corn  away  from  Chicago, 
nor,  indeed,  on  the  railway  was  there  a  sufficiency  of  rolling 
stock  or  locomotive  power  to  bring  it  into  Chicago.  As  I 
said  before,  the  country  was  bursting  with  its  own  produce 
and  smothered  in  its  own  fruits. 

At  Chicago  the  hotel  was  bigger  than  other  hotels  and 
grander.  There  were  pipes  without  end  for  cold  water 
which  ran  hot,  and  for  hot  water  which  would  not  run  at 
all.  The  post-office  also  was  grander  and  bigger  than  other 
post-offices,  though  the  postmaster  confessed  to  me  that 


NOISE  AND  DIRT. 


that  matter  of  the  delivery  of  letters  was  one  which  could 
not  be  compassed.  Just  at  that  moment  it  was  being  done 
as  a  private  speculation  ;  but  it  did  not  pay,  and  would  be 
discontinued.  The  theater,  too,  was  large,  handsome,  and 
convenient;  but  on  the  night  of  my  attendance  it  seemed 
to  lack  an  audience.  A  good  comic  actor  it  did  not  lack, 
and  I  never  laughed  more  heartily  in  my  life.  There  was 
something  wrong,  too,  just  at  that  time — I  could  not  make 
out  what — in  the  Constitution  of  Illinois,  and  the  present 
moment  had  been  selected  for  voting  a  new  Constitution. 
To  us  in  England  such  a  necessity  would  be  considered  a 
matter  of  importance,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  be  much  thought 
of  here.  Some  slight  alteration  probably,"  I  suggested. 
"  No,"  said  my  informant,  one  of  the  judges  of  their  courts, 
"it  is  to  be  a  thorough,  radical  change  of  the  whole  Con- 
stitution. They  are  voting  the  delegates  to-day."  I  went 
to  see  them  vote  the  delegates,  but,  unfortunately,  got  into 
a  wrong  place  —  by  invitation  —  and  was  turned  out,  not 
without  some  slight  tumult.  I  trust  that  the  new  Consti- 
tution was  carried  through  successfully. 

From  these  little  details  it  may,  perhaps,  be  understood 
how  a  town  like  Chicago  goes  on  and  prospers  in  spite  of 
all  the  drawbacks  which  are  incident  to  newness.  Men  in 
those  regions  do  not  mind  failures,  and,  when  they  have 
failed,  instantly  begin  again.  They  make  their  plans  on  a 
large  scale,  and  they  who  come  after  them  fill  up  what  has 
been  wanting  at  first.  Those  taps  of  hot  and  cold  water 
will  be  made  to  run  by  the  next  owner  of  the  hotel,  if  not 
by  the  present  owner.  In  another  ten  years  the  letters,  I 
do  not  doubt,  will  all  be  delivered.  Long  before  that  time 
the  theater  will  probably  be  full.  The  new  Constitution  is 
no  doubt  already  at  work,  and,  if  found  deficient,  another 
will  succeed  to  it  without  any  trouble  to  the  State  or  any 
talk  on  the  subject  through  the  Union.  Chicago  was  in- 
tended as  a  tovv^n  of  export  for  corn,  and  therefore  the  corn 
stores  have  received  the  first  attention.  When  I  was  there 
they  were  in  perfect  working  order. 

From  Chicago  we  went  on  to  Cleveland,  a  town  in  the 
State  of  Ohio,  on  Lake  Erie,  again  traveling  by  the  sleep- 
ing-cars. I  found  that  these  cars  were  universally  mentioned 
with  great  horror  and  disgust  by  Americans  of  the  upper 
class.  They  always  declared  that  they  would  not  travel  in  them 
on  any  account.    Noise  and  dirt  were  the  two  objections. 


178 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


They  are  very  noisy,  but  to  us  belonged  the  happy  power 
of  sleeping  down  noise.  I  invariably  slept  all  through  the 
night,  and  knew  nothing  about  the  noise.  They  are  also 
very  dirty — extremely  dirty — dirty  so  as  to  cause  much  an- 
noyance. But  then  they  are  not  quite  so  dirty  as  the  day 
cars.  If  dirt  is  to  be  a  bar  against  traveling  in  America, 
men  and  women  must  stay  at  home.  For  myself,  I  don't 
much  care  for  dirt,  having  a  strong  reliance  on  soap  and 
water  and  scrubbing-brashes.  No  one  regards  poisons  who 
carries  antidotes  in  which  he  has  perfect  faith. 

Cleveland  is  another  pleasant  town — pleasant  as  Milwau- 
kee and  Portland.  The  streets  are  handsome  and  are  shaded 
by  grand  avenues  of  trees.  One  of  these  streets  is  over  a 
mile  in  length,  and  throughout  the  whole  of  it  there  are 
trees  on  each  side — not  little,  paltry  trees  as  are  to  be  seen 
on  the  boulevards  of  Paris,  but  spreading  elms  :  the  beau- 
tiful American  elm,  which  not  only  spreads,  but  droops  also, 
and  makes  more  of  its  foliage  than  any  other  tree  extant. 
And  there  is  a  square  in  Cleveland,  well  sized,  as  large  as 
Russell  Square  I  should  say,  with  open  paths  across  it,  and 
containing  one  or  two  handsome  buildings.  I  cannot  but 
think  that  all  men  and  women  in  London  would  be  great 
gainers  if  the  iron  rails  of  the  squares  were  thrown  down 
and  the  grassy  inclosures  thrown  open  to  the  public.  Of 
course  the  edges  of  the  turf  would  be  worn,  and  the  paths 
would  not  keep  their  exact  shapes.  But  the  prison  look 
would  be  banished,  and  the  somber  sadness  of  the  squares 
would  be  relieved. 

I  was  particularly  struck  by  the  size  and  comfort  of  the 
houses  at  Cleveland.  All  down  that  street  of  which  I  have 
spoken  they  do  not  stand  continuously  together,  but  are 
detached  and  separate — houses  which  in  England  would 
require  some  fifteen  or  eighteen  hundred  a  year  for  their 
maintenance.  In  the  States,  however,  men  commonly  ex- 
pend upon  house  rent  a  much  greater  proportion  of  their 
income  than  they  do  in  England.  With  us  it  is,  I  believe, 
thought  that  a  man  should  certainly*  not  apportion  more 
than  a  seventh  of  his  spending  income  to  his  house  rent — 
some  say  not  more  than  a  tenth.  But  in  many  cities  of  the 
States  a  man  is  thought  to  live  well  within  bounds  if  he  so 
expends  a  fourth.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  Americans 
living  in  better  houses  than  Englishmen,  making  the  com- 
parison of  course  between  men  of  equal  incomes.    But  the 


RAILWAY  TRAVELERS. 


Englishman  has  many  more  incidental  expenses  than  the 
American.  He  spends  more  on  wine,  on  entertainments, 
on  horses,  and  on  amusements.  He  has  a  more  numerous 
establishment,  and  keeps  up  the  adjuncts  and  outskirts  of 
his  residence  with  a  more  finished  neatness. 

These  houses  in  Cleveland  were  very  good,  as,  indeed, 
they  are  in  most  Northern  towns;  but  some  of  them  have 
been  erected  with  an  amount  of  bad  taste  that  is  almost  in- 
credible. It  is  not  uncommon  to  see  in  front  of  a  square 
brick  house  a  wooden  quasi-Greek  portico,  with  a  pediment 
and  Ionic  columns,  equally  high  with  the  house  itself. 
Wooden  columns  with  Greek  capitals  attached  to  the  door- 
ways,  and  wooden  pediments  over  the  windows,  are  very 
frequent.  As  a  rule,  these  are  attached  to  houses  which, 
without  such  ornamentation,  would  be  simple,  unpretentious, 
square,  roomy  residences.  An  Ionic  or  Corinthian  capital 
stuck  on  to  a  log  of  wood  called  a  column,  and  then  hxed 
promiscuously  to  the  outside  of  an  ordinary  house,  is  to  my 
eye  the  vilest  of  architectural  pretenses.  Little  turrets  are 
better  than  this,  or  even  brown  battlements  made  of  mortar. 
Except  in  America  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  these 
vicious  bits  of  white  timber — timber  painted  white — plas- 
tered on  to  the  fronts  and  sides  of  red  brick  houses. 

Again  we  went  on  by  rail  to  Buffalo.  I  have  traveled 
some  thousands  of  miles  by  railway  in  the  States,  taking 
long  journeys  by  night  and  longer  journeys  by  day;  but  I 
do  not  remember  that  while  doing  so  I  ever  made  acquaint- 
ance with  an  American.  To  an  American  lady  in  a  rail- 
way car  I  should  no  more  think  of  speaking  than  I  should 
to  an  unknown  female  in  the  next  pew  to  me  at  a  London 
church.  It  is  hard  to  understand  from  whence  come  the 
laws  which  govern  societies  in  this  respect ;  but  there  are 
different  laws  in  different  societies,  which  soon  obtain  recog- 
nition for  themselves.  American  ladies  are  much  given  to 
talking,  and  are  generally  free  from  all  mauvaise  honte. 
They  are  collected  in  manner,  well  instructed,  and  resolved 
to  have  their  share  of  the  social  advantages  of  the  world. 
In  this  phase  of  life  they  come  out  more  strongly  than  Eng- 
lish women.  But  on  a  railway  journey,  be  it  ever  so  long, 
they  are  never  seen  speaking  to  a  stranger.  English  women, 
however,  on  English  railways  are  generally  willing  to  con- 
verse: they  will  do  so  if  they  be  on  a  journey;  but  will  not 
open  their  mouths  if  they  be  simply  passing  backward  and 


180 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


forward  between  their  homes  and  some  neighboring  town. 
We  soon  learn  the  rules  on  these  subjects;  but  who  make 
the  rules?  If  you  cross  the  Atlantic  with  an  American 
lady  you  invariably  fall  in  love  with  her  before  the  journey 
is  over.  Travel  with  the  same  woman  in  a  railway  car  for 
twelve  hours,  and  you  will  have  written  her  down  in  your 
own  mind  in  quite  other  language  than  that  of  love. 

And  now  for  Buifalo,  and  the  elevators.  I  trust  I  have 
made  it  understood  that  corn  comes  into  Buffalo,  not  only 
from  Chicago,  of  which  I  have  spoken  specially,  but  from 
all  the  ports  round  the  lakes :  Racine,  Milwaukee,  Grand 
Haven,  Port  Sarnia,  Detroit,  Toledo,  Cleveland,  and  many 
others.  At  these  ports  the  produce  is  generally  bought 
and  sold ;  but  at  Buffalo  it  is  merely  passed  through  a 
gateway.  It  is  taken  from  vessels  of  a  size  fitted  for  the 
lakes,  and  placed  in  other  vessels  fitted  for  the  canal.  This 
is  the  Erie  Canal,  which  connects  the  lakes  with  the  Hud- 
son River  and  with  New  York.  The  produce  which  passes 
through  the  Welland  Canal — the  canal  which  connects  Lake 
Erie  and  the  upper  lakes  with  Lake  Ontario  and  the  St. 
Lawrence — is  not  transhipped,  seeing  that  the  Welland 
Canal,  which  is  less  than  thirty  miles  in  length,  gives  a 
passage  to  vessels  of  500  tons.  As  I  have  before  said, 
60,000,000  bushels  of  breadstuff  were  thus  pushed  through 
Buffalo  in  the  open  mouths  of  the  year  1861.  These  open 
months  run  from  the  middle  of  April  to  the  middle  of 
November;  but  the  busy  period  is  that  of  the  last  two 
months — the  time,  that  is,  which  intervenes  between  the  full 
ripening  of  the  corn  and  the  coming  of  the  ice. 

An  elevator  is  as  ugly  a  monster  as  has  been  yet  pro- 
duced. In  uncouthness  of  form  it  outdoes  those  obsolete 
old  brutes  who  used  to  roam  about  the  semi-aqueous  world, 
and  live  a  most  uncomfortable  life  with  their  great  hunger- 
ing stomachs  and  huge  unsatisfied  maws.  The  elevator 
itself  consists  of  a  big  movable  trunk — movable  as  is  that 
of  an  elephant,  but  not  pliable,  and  less  graceful  even  than 
an  elephant's.  This  is  attached  to  a  huge  granary  or  barn; 
but  in  order  to  give  altitude  within  the  barn  for  the  neces- 
sary moving  up  and  down  of  this  trunk — seeing  that  it 
cannot  be  curled  gracefully  to  its  purposes  as  the  elephant's 
is  curled — there  is  an  awkward  box  erected  on  the  roof  of 
the  barn,  giving  some  twenty  feet  of  additional  height,  up 
into  which  the  elevator  can  be  thrust.    It  will  be  under- 


GRAIN  ELEVATOR. 


181 


stood,  then,  that  this  big  movable  trunk,  the  head  of  which, 
when  it  is  at  rest,  is  thrust  up  into  the  box  on  the  roof,  is 
made  to  slant  down  in  an  oblique  direction  from  the  build- 
ing to  the  river ;  for  the  elevator  is  an  amphibious  insti- 
tution, and  flourishes  only  on  the  banks  of  navigable  waters. 
When  its  head  is  ensconced  within  its  box,  and  the  beast  of 
prey  is  thus  nearly  hidden  within  the  building,  the  unsus- 
picious vessel  is  brought  up  within  reach  of  the  crealure's 
trunk,  and  down  it  comes,  like  a  musquito's  proboscis,  right 
through  the  deck,  in  at  the  open  aperture  of  the  hole,  and 
so  into  the  very  vitals  and  bowels  of  the  ship.  When  there, 
it  goes  to  work  upon  its  food  with  a  greed  and  an  avidity 
that  is  disgusting  to  a  beholder  of  any  taste  or  imagination. 
And  now  I  must  explain  the  anatomical  arrangement  by 
which  the  elevator  still  devours  and  continues  to  devour, 
till  the  corn  within  its  reach  has  all  been  swallowed,  mas- 
ticated, and  digested.  Its  long  trunk,  as  seen  slanting 
down  from  out  of  the  building  across  the  wharf  and  into 
the  ship,  is  a  mere  wooden  pipe ;  but  this  pipe  is  divided 
within.  It  has  two  departments ;  and  as  the  grain-bearing 
troughs  pass  up  the  one  on  a  pliable  band,  they  pass  empty 
down  the  other.  The  system,  therefore,  is  that  of  an  ordi- 
nary dredging  machine ;  only  that  corn  and  not  mud  is 
taken  away,  and  that  the  buckets  or  troughs  are  hidden 
from  sight.  Below,  within  the  stomach  of  the  poor  bark, 
three  or  four  laborers  are  at  work,  helping  to  feed  the 
elevator.  They  shovel  the  corn  up  toward  its  maw,  so  that 
at  every  swallow  he  should  take  in  all  that  he  can  hold. 
Thus  the  troughs,  as  they  ascend,  are  kept  full,  and  when 
they  reach  the  upper  building  they  empty  themselves  into  a 
shoot,  over  which  a  porter  stands  guard,  moderating  the 
shoot  by  a  door,  which  the  weight  of  his  finger  can  open 
and  close.  Through  this  doorway  the  corn  runs  into  a 
measure,  and  is  weighed.  By  measures  of  forty  bushels 
each,  the  tale  is  kept.  There  stands  the  apparatus,  with 
the  figures  plainly  marked,  over  against  the  porter's  eye ; 
and  as  the  sum  mounts  nearly  up  to  forty  bushels  he  closes 
the  door  till  the  grains  run  thinly  through,  hardly  a  hand- 
ful at  a  time,  so  that  the  balance  is  exactly  struck.  Then 
the  teller  standing  by  marks  down  his  figure,  and  the  record 
is  made.  The  exact  porter  touches  the  string  of  another 
door,  and  the  forty  bushels  of  corn  run  out  at  the  bottom 
of  the  measure,  disappear  down  another  shoot,  slanting 

16 


182 


NORTH  AMEUICA. 


also  toward  the  water,  and  deposit  themselves  in  the  canal 
boat.  The  transit  of  the  bushels  of  corn  from  the  larger 
vessel  to  the  smaller  will  have  taken  less  than  a  minute,  and 
the  cost  of  that  transit  will  have  been — a  farthing. 

But  I  have  spoken  of  the  rivers  of  wheat,  and  I  must 
explain  what  are  those  rivers.  In  the  working  of  the 
elevator,  which  I  have  just  attempted  to  describe,  the  two 
vessels  were  supposed  to  be  lying  at  the  same  wharf,  on  the 
same  side  of  the  building,  in  the  same  water,  the  smaller 
vessel  inside  the  larger  one.  When  this  is  the  case  the 
corn  runs  direct  from  the  weighing  measure  into  the  shoot 
that  communicates  with  the  canal  boat.  But  there  is  not 
room  or  time  for  confining  the  work  to  one  side  of  the 
building.  There  is  water  on  both  sides,  and  the  corn  or 
wheat  is  elevated  on  the  one  side,  and  reshipped  on  the 
other.  To  effect  this  the  corn  is  carried  across  the  breadth 
of  the  building;  but,  nevertheless,  it  is  never  handled  or 
moved  in  its  direction  on  trucks  or  carriages  requiring  the 
use  of  men's  muscles  for  its  motion.  Across  the  floor  of 
the  building  are  two  gutters,  or  channels,  and  through 
these,  small  troughs  on  a  pliable  band  circulate  very  quickly. 
They  which  run  one  way,  in  one  channel,  are  laden;  they 
which  return  by  the  other  channel  are  empty.  The  corn 
pours  itself  into  these,  and  they  again  pour  it  into  the 
shoot  which  commands  the  other  water.  And  thus  rivers 
of  corn  are  running  through  these  buildings  night  and  day. 
The  secret  of  all  the  motion  and  arrangement  consists,  of 
course,  in  the  elevation.  The  corn  is  lifted  up;  and  when 
lifted  up  can  move  itself,  and  arrange  itself,  and  weigh  it- 
self, and  load  itself. 

I  should  have  stated  that  all  this  wheat  which  passes 
through  Buffalo  comes  loose,  in  bulk.  Nothing  is  known 
of  sacks  or  bags.  To  any  spectator  at  Buffalo  this  be- 
comes immediately  a  matter  of  course;  but  this  should  be 
explained,  as  we  in  England  are  not  accustomed  to  see 
wheat  traveling  in  this  open,  unguarded,  and  plebeian  man- 
ner. Wheat  with  us  is  aristocratic,  and  travels  always  in 
its  private  carriage. 

Over  and  beyond  the  elevators  there  is  nothing  specially 
worthy  of  remark  at  Buffalo.  It  is  a  fine  city,  like  all  other 
American  cities  of  its  class.  The  streets  are  broad,  the 
"blocks"  are  high,  and  cars  on  tramways  run  all  day,  and 
nearly  all  night  as  well. 


TRENTON  PALLS. 


183 


CHAPTER  XIL 

BUFFALO  TO  NEW  YORK. 

We  had  now  before  us  only  two  points  of  interest  before 
we  should  reach  New  York — the  Falls  of  Trenton,  and  West 
Point  on  the  Hudson  River.  We  were  too  late  in  the  year 
to  get  up  to  Lake  George,  which  lies  in  the  State  of  New 
York  north  of  Albany,  and  is,  in  fact,  the  southern  contin- 
uation of  Lake  Champlain.  Lake  George,  I  know,  is  very 
lovely,  and  I  would  fain  have  seen  it ;  but  visitors  to  it  must 
have  some  hotel  accommodation,  and  the  hotel  was  closed 
when  we  were  near  enough  to  visit  it.  T  was  in  its  close 
neighborhood  three  years  since,  in  June  ;  but  then  the  hotel 
was  not  yet  opened.  A  visitor  to  Lake  George  must  be 
very  exact  in  his  time.  July  and  August  are  the  months — 
with,  perhaps,  the  grace  of  a  week  in  September. 

The  hotel  at  Trenton  was  also  closed,  as  I  was  told.  But 
even  if  there  were  no  hotel  at  Trenton,  it  can  be  visited 
without  difficulty.  It  is  within  a  carriage  drive  of  Utica, 
and  there  is,  moreover,  a  direct  railway  from  Utica,  with  a 
station  at  the  Trenton  Falls.  Utica  is  a  town  on  the  line 
of  railway  from  Buffalo  to  New  Y^ork  via  Albany,  and  is 
like  all  the  other  towns  we  had  visited.  There  are  broad 
streets,  and  avenues  of  trees,  and  large  shops,  and  excellent 
houses.  A  general  air  of  fat  prosperity  pervades  them  all, 
and  is  strong  at  Utica  as  elsewhere. 

I  remember  to  have  been  told,  thirty  years  ago,  that  a 
traveler  might  go  far  and  wide  in  search  of  the  picturesque 
without  finding  a  spot  more  romantic  in  its  loveliness  than 
Trenton  Falls.  The  name  of  the  river  is  Canada  Creek 
West ;  but  as  that  is  hardly  euphonious,  the  course  of  the 
water  which  forms  the  falls  has  been  called  after  the  town 
or  parish.  This  course  is  nearly  two  miles  in  length  ;  and 
along  the  space  of  this  two  miles  it  is  impossible  to  say 
where  the  greatest  beauty  exists.  To  see  Trenton  aright, 
one  must  be  careful  not  to  have  too  much  water.  A  suffi- 
ciency is  no  doubt  desirable  ;  and  it  may  be  that  at  the 


184  NORTH  AMERICA. 

close  of  summer,  before  any  of  the  autumnal  rains  have 
fallen,  there  may  occasionally  be  an  insufficiency.  But  if 
there  be  too  much,  the  passage  up  the  rocks  along  the  river 
is  impossible.  The  way  on  which  the  tourist  should  walk 
becomes  the  bed  of  the  stream,  and  the  great  charm  of  the 
place  cannot  be  enjoyed.  That  charm  consists  in  descend- 
ing into  the  ravine  of  the  river,  down  amid  the  rocks  through 
which  it  has  cut  its  channel,  and  in  walking  up  the  bed 
against  the  stream,  in  climbing  the  sides  of  the  various 
falls,  and  sticking  close  to  the  river  till  an  envious  block  is 
reached  which  comes  sheer  down  into  the  water  and  pre- 
vents farther  progress.  This  is  nearly  two  miles  above  the 
steps  by  which  the  descent  is  made  ;  and  not  a  foot  of  this 
distance  but  is  wildly  beautiful.  When  the  river  is  very 
low  there  is  a  pathway  even  beyond  that  block ;  but  when 
this  is  the  case  there  can  hardly  be  enough  of  water  to  make 
the  fall  satisfactory. 

There  is  no  one  special  cataract  at  Trenton  which  is  in 
itself  either  wonderful  or  pre-eminently  beautiful.  It  is  the 
position,  form,  color,  and  rapidity  of  the  river  which  gives 
the  charm.  It  runs  through  a  deep  ravine,  at  the  bottom 
of  which  the  water  has  cut  for  itself  a  channel  through  the 
rocks,  the  sides  of  which  rise  sometimes  with  the  sharpness 
of  the  walls  of  a  stone  sarcophagus.  They  are  rounded, 
too,  toward  the  bed  as  I  have  seen  the  bottom  of  a  sar- 
cophagus. Along  the  side  of  the  right  bank  of  the  river 
there  is  a  passage  which,  w^hen  the  freshets  come,  is  alto- 
gether covered.  This  passage  is  sometimes  very  narrow; 
but  in  the  narrowest  parts  an  iron  chain  is  affixed  into  the 
rock.  It  is  slippery  and  wet ;  and  it  is  well  for  ladies,  when 
visiting  the  place,  to  be  provided  with  outside  India-rubber 
shoes,  which  keep  a  hold  upon  the  stone.  If  I  remember 
rightly,  there  are  two  actual  cataracts — one  not  far  above 
the  steps  by  which  the  descent  is  made  into  the  channel,  and 
the  other  close  under  a  summer-house,  near  to  which  the 
visitors  reascend  into  the  wood.  But  these  cataracts,  though 
by  no  means  despicable  as  cataracts,  leave  comparatively  a 
slight  impression.  They  tumble  down  with  sufficient  vio- 
lence and  the  usual  fantastic  disposition  of  their  forces ; 
but  simply  as  cataracts  w-ithin  a  day's  journey  of  Niagara, 
they  would  be  nothing.  Up  beyond  the  summer-house  the 
passage  along  the  river  can  be  continued  for  another  mile; 
but  it  is  rough,  and  the  climbing  in  some  places  rather  dif- 


ALBANY. 


185 


ficult  for  ladies.  Every  man,  however,  who  has  the  use  of 
his  legs  should  do  it ;  for  the  succession  of  rapids,  and  the 
twistings  of  the  channels,  and  the  forms  of  the  roclvs  are  as 
wild  and  beautiful  as  the  imagination  can  desire.  The 
banks  of  the  river  are  closely  wooded  on  each  side  ;  and 
though  this  circumstance  does  not  at  first  seem  to  add  much 
to  the  beauty,  seeing  that  the  ravine  is  so  (]eep  that  the  ab- 
sence of  wood  above  would  hardly  be  noticed,  still  there 
are  broken  clefts  ever  and  anon  through  which  the  colors 
of  the  foliage  show  themselves,  and  straggling  boughs  and 
rough  roots  break  through  the  rocks  here  and  there,  and 
add  to  the  wildness  and  charm  of  the  whole. 

The  walk  back  from  the  summer-house  through  the  wood 
is  very  lovely ;  but  it  would  be  a  disappointing  walk  to  vis- 
itors who  had  been  prevented  by  a  flood  in  the  river  from 
coming  up  the  channel,  for  it  indicates  plainly  how  requisite 
it  is  that  the  river  should  be  seen  from  below  and  not  from 
above.  The  best  view  of  the  larger  fall  itself  is  that  seen 
from  the  wood.  And  here  again  I  would  point  out  that 
any  male  visitor  should  walk  the  channel  of  the  river  up 
and  down.  The  descent  is  too  slippery  and  difficult  for 
bipeds  laden  with  petticoats.  We  found  a  small  hotel  open 
at  Trenton,  at  which  we  got  a  comfortable  dinner,  and  then 
in  the  evening  were  driven  back  to  Utica. 

Albany  is  the  capital  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  our 
road  from  Trenton  to  West  Point  lay  through  that  town  ; 
but  these  political  State  capitals  have  no  interest  in  them- 
selves. The  State  legislature  was  not  sitting;  and  we  went 
on,  merely  remarking  that  the  manner  in  which  the  railway 
cars  are  made  to  run  backward  and  forward  through  the 
crowded  streets  of  the  town  must  cause  a  frequent  loss  of 
human  life.  One  is  led  to  suppose  that  children  in  Albany 
can  hardly  have  a  chance  of  coming  fo  maturity.  Such 
accidents  do  not  become  the  subject  of  long-continued  and  , 
strong  comment  in  the  States  as  they  do  with  us  ;  but  nev- 
ertheless I  should  have  thought  that  such  a  state  of  things 
as  we  saw  there  would  have  given  rise  to  some  remark  on 
the  part  of  the  philanthropists.  I  cannot  myself  say  that 
I  saw  anybody  killed,  and  therefore  should  not  be  justified 
in  making  more  than  this  passing  remark  on  the  subject. 

When  first  the  Americans  of  the  Northern  States  began 
to  talk  much  of  their  country,  their  claims  as  to  fine  scenery 
were  confined  to  Niagara  and  the  Hudson  River.    Of  Ni- 

16* 


186 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


agara  I  have  spoken ;  and  all  the  world  has  acknowledged 
that  no  claim  made  on  that  head  can  be  regarded  as  exag- 
gerated. As  to  the  Hudson  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  so 
much  generally,  though  there  is  one  spot  upon  it  which  can- 
not be  beaten  for  sweetness,  I  have  been  up  and  down  the 
Hudson  by  water,  and  confess  that  the  entire  river  is  pretty. 
But  there  is  much  of  it  that  is  not  pre-eminently  pretty 
among  rivers.  As  a  whole,  it  cannot  be  named  with  the 
Upper  Mississippi,  with  the  Rhine,  with  the  Moselle,  or 
with  the  Upper  Rhone.  The  palisades  just  out  of  New 
York  are  pretty,  and  the  whole  passage  through  the  mount- 
ains from  West  Point  up  to  Catskill  and  Hudson  is  inter- 
esting. But  the  glory  of  the  Hudson  is  at  West  Point 
itself ;  and  thither  on  this  occasion  we  went  direct  by  rail- 
way, and  there  we  remained  for  two  days.  The  Catskill 
Mountains  should  be  seen  by  a  detour  from  off  the  river.  We 
did  not  visit  them,  because  here  again  the  hotel  was  closed. 
I  will  leave  them,  therefore,  for  the  new  hand  book  which 
Mr.  Murray  will  soon  bring  out. 

Of  West  Point  there  is  something  to  be  said  independ- 
ently of  its  scenery.  It  is  the  Sandhurst  of  the  States. 
Here  is  their  military  school,  from  which  officers  are  drafted 
to  their  regiments,  and  the  tuition  for  military  purposes  is, 
1  imagine,  of  a  high  order.  It  must  of  course  be  borne  in 
mind  that  West  Point,  even  as  at  present  arranged,  is  fitted 
to  the  wants  of  the  old  army,  and  not  to  that  of  the  army 
now  required.  It  can  go  but  a  little  way  to  supply  officers 
for  500,000  men;  but  would  do  much  toward  supplying 
them  for  40,000.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  to  West  Point 
the  regular  army  of  the  Northern  States  had  not  even  then 
swelled  itself  to  the  latter  number. 

I  found  that  there  were  220  students  at  West  Point  ; 
that  about  forty  graduate  every  year,  each  of  whom  receives 
a  commission  in  the  army;  that  about  120  pupils  are  ad- 
mitted every  year ;  and  that  in  the  course  of  every  year 
about  eighty  either  resign,  or  are  called  upon  to  leave  on 
account  of  some  deficiency,  or  fail  in  their  final  examination. 
The  result  is  simply  this,  that  one-third  of  those  who  enter 
succeeds,  and  that  two-thirds  fail.  The  number  of  failures 
seemed  to  me  to  be  terribly  large — so  large  as  to  give  great 
ground  of  hesitation  to  a  parent  in  accepting  a  nomination 
for  the  college.  I  especially  inquired  into  the  particulars 
of  these  dismissals  and  resignations,  and  was  assured  that 


WEST  POINT. 


187 


the  majority  of  tbem  take  place  in  the  first  year  of  the 
pupilage.  It  is  soon  seen  whether  or  no  a  lad  has  the 
mental  and  physical  capacities  necessary  for  the  education 
and  future  life  required  of  him,  and  care  is  taken  that  those 
shall  be  removed  early  as  to  whom  it  may  be  determined 
that  the  necessary  capacity  is  clearly  wanting.  If  this  is 
done — and  I  do  not  doubt  it — the  evil  is  much  mitigated. 
The  elfect  otherwise  would  be  very  injurious.  The  lads  re- 
main till  they  are  perhaps  one  and  twenty,  and  have  then 
acquired  aptitudes  for  military  life,  but  no  other  aptitudes. 
At  that  age  the  education  cannot  be  commenced  anew,  and, 
moreover,  at  that  age  the  disgrace  of  failure  is  very  in- 
jurious. The  period  of  education  used  to  be  five  years,  but 
has  now  been  reduced  to  four.  This  was  done  in  order  that 
a  double  class  might  be  graduated  in  1861  to  supply  the 
wants  of  the  war.  I  believe  it  is  considered  that  but  for 
such  necessity  as  that,  the  fifth  year  of  education  can  be  ill 
spared. 

The  discipline,  to  our  English  ideas,  is  very  strict.  In 
the  first  place  no  kind  of  beer,  wine,  or  spirits  is  allowed  at 
West  Point.  The  law  upon  this  point  may  be  said  to  be 
very  vehement,  for  it  debars  even  the  visitors  at  the  hotel 
from  the  solace  of  a  glass  of  beer.  The  hotel  is  within  the 
bounds  of  the  college,  and  as  the  lads  might  become  pur- 
chasers at  the  bar,  there  is  no  bar  allowed.  Any  breach  of 
this  law  leads  to  instant  expulsion  ;  or,  I  should  say  rather, 
any  detection  of  such  breach.  The  officer  who  showed  us 
over  the  college  assured  me  that  the  presence  of  a  glass  of 
wine  in  a  young  man's  room  would  secure  his  exclusion, 
even  though  there  should  be  no  evidence  that  he  had  tasted 
it.  He  was  very  firm  as  to  this ;  but  a  little  bird  of  West 
Point,  whose  information,  though  not  official  or  probably 
accurate  in  words,  seemed  to  me  to  be  worthy  of  reliance  in 
general,  told  me  that  eyes  were  wont  to  wink  when  such 
glasses  of  wine  made  themselves  unnecessarily  visible.  Let 
us  fancy  an  English  mess  of  young  men  from  seventeen  to 
twenty-one,  at  which  a  mug  of  beer  would  be  felony  and  a 
glass  of  wine  high  treason  !  But  the  whole  management  of 
the  young  with  the  Americans  differs  much  from  that  in 
vogue  with  us.  We  do  not  require  so  much  at  so  early  an 
age,  either  in  knowledge,  in  morals,  or  even  in  manliness. 
In  America,  if  a  lad  be  under  control,  as  at  West  Point,  he 
is  called  upon  for  an  amount  of  labor  and  a  degree  of  con- 


188 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


duct  which  would  be  considered  quite  transcendental  and 
out  of  the  question  in  England.  But  if  he  be  not  under 
control,  if  at  the  age  of  eighteen  he  be  living  at  home,  or  be 
from  his  circumstances  exempt  from  professorial  power,  he 
is  a  full-fledged  man,  with  his  pipe  apparatus  and  his  bar 
acquaintances. 

And  then  I  was  told,  at  West  Point,  how  needful  and  yet 
how  painful  it  was  that  all  should  be  removed  who  were  in 
any  way  deiicient  in  credit  to  the  establishment.  "  Our 
rules  are  very  exact,"  my  informant  told  me;  "but  the 
carrying  out  of  our  rules  is  a  task  not  always  very  easy." 
As  to  this  also  I  had  already  heard  something  from  that 
little  bird  of  West  Point;  but  of  course  I  wisely  assented 
to  my  informant,  remarking  that  discipline  in  such  an  estab- 
lishment was  essentially  necessary.  The  little  bird  had  told 
me  that  discipline  at  West  Point  had  been  rendered  terribly 
difficult  by  political  interference.  "A  young  man  will  be 
dismissed  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  board,  and  will  be 
sent  away.  And  then,  after  a  week  or  two,  he  will  be  sent 
back,  with  an  order  from  Washington  that  another  trial 
shall  be  given  him.  The  lad  will  march  back  into  the  col- 
lege with  all  the  honors  of  a  victory,  and  will  be  conscious 
of  a  triumph  over  the  superintendent  and  his  officers." 
"And  is  that  common  ?"  I  asked.  "  Not  at  the  present  mo- 
ment," I  was  told.  "But  it  was  common  before  the  war. 
While  Mr.  Buchanan,  and  Mr.  Pierce,  and  Mr.  Polk  were 
Presidents,  no  officer  or  board  of  officers  then  at  West 
Point  was  able  to  dismiss  a  lad  whose  father  was  a  South- 
erner, and  who  had  friends  among  the  government." 

Not  only  was  this  true  of  West  Point,  but  the  same 
allegation  is  true  as  to  all  matters  of  patronage  throughout 
the  United  States.  During  the  three  or  four  last  presiden- 
cies, and  I  believe  back  to  the  time  of  Jackson,  there  has 
been  an  organized  system  of  dishonesty  in  the  management 
of  all  beneticial  places  under  the  control  of  the  government. 
I  doubt  whether  any  despotic  court  of  Europe  has  been  so 
corrupt  in  the  distribution  of  places — that  is,  in  the  selection 
of  public  officers — as  has  been  the  assemblage  of  statesmen 
at  Washington.  And  this  is  the  evil  which  the  country  is 
now  expiating  with  its  blood  and  treasure.  It  has  allowed 
its  knaves  to  stand  in  the  high  places ;  and  now  it  finds 
that  knavish  works  have  brought  about  evil  results.  But 


WEST  POINT. 


189 


of  this  I  shall  be  constrained  to  say  something  further 
hereafter. 

We  went  into  all  the  schools  of  the  college,  and  made 
ourselves  fully  aware  that  the  amount  of  learning  imparted 
was  far  above  our  comprehension.  It  always  occurs  to  me, 
in  looking  through  tlie  new  schools  of  the  present  day,  that 
I  ought  to  be  thankful  to  persons  who  know  so  much  for 
condescending  to  speak  to  me  at  all  in  plain  English.  I 
said  a  word  to  the  gentleman  who  was  with  me  about  horses, 
seeing  a  lot  of  lads  going  to  their  riding  lesson.  But  he 
■was  down  upon  me,  and  crushed  me  instantly  beneath  the 
weight  of  my  own  ignorance.  He  walked  me  up  to  the 
image  of  a  horse,  which  he  took  to  pieces,  bit  by  bit,  taking 
off  skin,  muscle,  flesh,  nerves,  and  bones,  till  the  animal  was 
a  heap  of  atoms,  and  assured  me  that  the  anatomy  of  the 
horse  throughout  was  one  of  the  necessary  studies  of  the 
place.  We  afterward  went  to  see  the  riding.  The  horses 
themselves  were  poor  enough.  This  was  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  that  such  of  them  as  had  been  found  fit  for  military 
service  had  been  taken  for  the  use  of  the  army. 

There  is  a  gallery  in  the  college  in  which  are  hung 
sketches  and  pictures  by  former  students.  I  was  greatly 
struck  with  the  merit  of  many  of  these.  There  were  some 
copies  from  well-known  works  of  art  of  very  high  excel- 
lence, when  the  age  is  taken  into  account  of  those  by  whom 
they  were  done.  I  don't  know  how  far  the  art  of  drawing, 
as  taught  generally,  and  with  no  special  tendency  to  mili- 
tary instruction,  may  be  necessary  for  military  training; 
but  if  it  be  necessary  I  should  imagine  that  more  is  done  in 
that  direction  at  West  Point  than  at  Sandhurst.  I  found, 
however,  that  much  of  that  in  the  gallery,  which  was  good, 
had  been  done  by  lads  who  had  not  obtained  their  degree, 
and  who  had  shown  an  aptitude  for  drawing,  but  had  not 
shown  any  aptitude  for  other  pursuits  necessary  to  their 
intended  career. 

And  then  we  were  taken  to  the  chapel,  and  there  saw, 
displayed  as  trophies,  two  of  our  own  dear  old  English  flags. 
I  have  seen  many  a  banner  hung  up  in  token  of  past  victory, 
and  many  a  flag  taken  on  the  field  of  battle  mouldering  by 
degrees  into  dust  on  some  chapel's  wall — but  they  have  not 
been  the  flags  of  England.  Till  this  day  I  had  never  seen 
our  own  colors  in  any  position  but  one  of  self-assertion  and 
independent  power.  .  From  the  tone  used  by  the  gentleman 


190 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


who  showed  them  to  me,  I  could  gather  that  he  would  have 
passed  them  by,  had  he  not  foreseen  that  he  could  not  do  so 
without  my  notice.  "  I  don't  know  that  we  are  right  to  put 
them  there,"  he  said.  "Quite  right,"  was  my  reply,  "as 
long  as  the  world  does  such  things."  In  private  life  it  is 
vulgar  to  triumph  over  one's  friends,  and  malicious  to  tri- 
umph over  one's  enemies.  We  have  not  got  so  far  yet  in 
public  life,  but  I  hope  we  are  advancing  toward  it.  In  the 
mean  time  I  did  not  begrudge  the  Americans  our  two  flags. 
If  we  keep  flags  and  cannons  taken  from  our  enemies,  and 
show  them  about  as  signs  of  our  own  prowess  after  those 
enemies  have  become  friends,  why  should  not  others  do  so 
as  regards  us  ?  It  clearly  would  not  be  well  for  the  world 
that  we  should  always  beat  other  nations  and  never  be 
beaten.  I  did  not  begrudge  that  chapel  our  two  flags. 
But,  nevertheless,  the  sight  of  them  made  me  sick  in  the 
stomach  and  uncomfortable.  As  an  Englishman  I  do  not 
want  to  be  ascendant  over  any  one.  But  it  makes  me  very 
ill  when  any  one  tries  to  be  ascendant  over  me.  I  wish  we 
could  send  back  with  our  compliments  all  the  trophies  that 
we  hold,  carriage  paid,  and  get  back  in  return  those  two 
flags,  and  any  other  flag  or  two  of  our  own  that  may  be 
doing  similar  duty  about  the  world.  I  take  it  that  the 
parcel  sent  away  would  be  somewhat  more  bulky  than  that 
which  would  reach  us  in  return. 

The  discipline  at  West  Point  seemed,  as  I  have  said,  to 
be  very  severe ;  but  it  seemed  also  that  that  severity  could 
not  in  all  cases  be  maintained.  The  hours  of  study  also 
were  long,  being  nearly  continuous  throughout  the  day. 
"English  lads  of  that  age  could  not  do  it,"  I  said;  thus 
confessing  that  English  lads  must  have  in  them  less  power 
of  sustained  work  than  those  of  America.  "They  must  do 
it  here,"  said  my  informant,  "or  else  leave  us."  And  then 
he  took  us  off  to  one  of  the  young  gentlemen's  quarters,  in 
order  that  we  might  see  the  nature  of  their  rooms.  We 
found  the  young  gentleman  fast  asleep  on  his  bed,  and  felt 
uncommonly  grieved  that  we  should  have  thus  intruded  on 
him.  As  the  hour  was  one  of  those  allocated  by  my  in- 
formant in  the  distribution  of  the  day  to  private  study,  I 
could  not  but  take  the  present  occupation  of  the  embryo 
warrior  as  an  indication  that  the  amount  of  labor  required 
might  be  occasionally  too  much  even  for  an  American 
youth.     "The  heat  makes  one  so  uncommonly  drowsy," 


WEST  POINT. 


191 


said  tlie  young  man.  I  was  not  the  least  surprised  at  the 
exclamation.  The  air  of  the  apartment  had  been  warmed 
up  to  such  a  pitch  by  the  hot-pipe  apparatus  of  the  build- 
ing that  prolonged  life  to  me  would,  I  should  have  thought, 
be  out  of  the  question  in  such  an  atmosphere.  ''Do  you 
always  have  it  as  hot  as  this?"  I  asked.  The  young  man 
swore  that  it  was  so,  and  with  considerable  energy  expressed 
his  opinion  that  all  his  health,  and  spirits,  and  vitality  were 
being  baked  out  of  him.  He  seemed  to  have  a  strong 
opinion  on  the  matter,  for  which  I  respected  him;  but  it 
had  never  occurred  to  him,  and  did  not  then  occur  to  him, 
that  anything  could  be  done  to  moderate  that  deathly  flow 
of  hot  air  which  came  up  to  him  from  the  neighboring  in- 
fernal regions.  He  was  pale  in  the  face,  and  all  the  lads 
there  were  pale.  American  lads  and  lasses  are  all  pale. 
Men  at  thirty  and  women  at  twenty-five  have  had  all  sem- 
blance of  youth  baked  out  of  them.  Infants  even  are  not 
rosy,  and  the  only  shades  known  on  the  cheeks  of  children 
are  those  composed  of  brown,  yellow,  and  white.  All  this 
comes  of  those  damnable  hot-air  pipes  with  which  every 
tenement  in  America  is  infested.  "We  cannot  do  without 
them,"  they  say.  "Our  cold  is  so  intense  that  we  must 
heat  our  houses  throughout.  Open  fire-places  in  a  few 
rooms  would  not  keep  our  toes  and  fingers  from  the  frost." 
There  is  much  in  this;  The  assertion  is  no  doubt  true,  and 
thereby  a  great  difficulty  is  created.  It  is  no  doubt  quite 
within  the  power  of  American  ingenuity  to  moderate  the 
heat  of  these  stoves,  and  to  produce  such  an  atmosphere  as 
may  be  most  conducive  to  health.  In  hospitals  no  doubt 
this  will  be  done ;  perhaps  is  done  at  present — though  even 
in  hospitals  I  have  thought  the  air  hotter  than  it  should  be. 
But  hot-air  drinking  is  like  dram-drinking.  There  is  the 
machine  within  the  house  capable  of  supplying  any  quan- 
tity, and  those  who  consume  it  unconsciously  increase  their 
draughts,  and  take  their  drams  stronger  and  stronger,  till  a 
breath  of  fresh  air  is  felt  to  be  a  blast  direct  from  Boreas. 

West  Point  is  at  all  points  a  military  colony,  and,  as  such, 
belongs  exclusively  to  the  Federal  government  as  separate 
from  the  government  of  any  individual  State.  It  is  the 
purchased  property  of  the  United  States  as  a  whole,  and  is 
devoted  to  the  necessities  of  a  military  college.  No  man 
could  take  a  house  there,  or  succeed  in  getting  even  per- 
manent lodgings,  unless  he  belonged  to  or  were  employed 


192 


KOilTU  AMERICA. 


by  the  establishment.  There  is  no  intercourse  by  road  be- 
tween West  Point  and  other  towns  or  villages  on  the  river 
side,  and  any  such  intercourse  even  by  water  is  looked  upon 
with  jealousy  by  the  authorities.  The  wish  is  that  West 
Point  should  be  isolated  and  kept  apart  for  military  in- 
struction to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  purposes  whatever — . 
especially  love-making  purposes.  The  coming  over  from 
the  other  side  of  the  water  of  young  ladies  by  the  ferry  is 
regarded  as  a  great  hinderance.  They  will  come,  and  then 
the  military  students  will  talk  to  them.  We  all  know  to 
what  such  talking  leads  I  A  lad  when  I  was  there  had 
been  tempted  to  get  out  of  barracks  in  plain  clothes,  in 
order  that  he  might  call  on  a  young  lady  at  the  hotel ;  and 
was  in  consequence  obliged  to  abandon  his  commission  and 
retire  from  the  Academy,  Will  that  young  lady  ever  again 
sleep  quietly  in  her  bed  ?  I  should  hope  not.  An  opinion 
was  expressed  to  me  that  there  should  be  no  hotel  in  such 
a  place — that  there  should  be  no  ferry,  no  roads,  no  means 
by  which  the  attention  of  the  students  should  be  distracted 
— that  these  military  Rasselases  should  live  in  a  happy 
military  valley  from  which  might  be  excluded  both  strong 
drinks  and  female  charms — those  two  poisons  from  which 
youthful  military  ardor  is  supposed  to  suffer  so  much. 

It  always  seems  to  me  that  such  training  begins  at  the 
wrong  end.  I  will  not  say  that  nothing  should  be  done  to 
keep  lads  of  eighteen  from  strong  drinks.  I  will  not  even 
say  that  there  should  not  be  some  line  of  moderation  with 
reference  to  feminine  allurements.  But,  as  a  rule,  the  re- 
straint should  come  from  the  sense,  good  feeling,  and  educa- 
tion of  him  wlio  is  restrained.  There  is  no  embargo  on 
the  beer-shops  either  at  Harrow  or  at  Oxford — and  cer- 
tainly none  upon  the  young  ladies.  Occasional  damage 
may  accrue  from  habits  early  depraved,  or  a  heart  too  early 
and  too  easily  susceptible;  but  the  injury  so  done  is  not,  I 
think,  equal  to  that  inflicted  by  a  Draconian  code  of  morals, 
which  will  probably  be  evaded,  and  will  certainly  create  a 
desire  for  its  evasion. 

Nevertheless,  I  feel  assured  that  West  Point,  taken  as  a 
whole,  is  an  excellent  military  academy,  and  that  young 
men  have  gone  forth  from  it,  and  will  go  forth  from  it,  fit 
for  officers  as  far  as  training  can  make  men  fit.  The  fault, 
if  fault  there  be,  is  that  which  is  to  be  found  in  so  many  of 
the  institutions  of  the  United  States,  and  is  one  so  allied 


WEST  POINT. 


193 


to  a  virtue,  that  no  foreigner  has  a  right  to  wonder  that  it 
is  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  virtue  by  all  Americans. 
There  has  been  an  attempt  to  make  the  place  too  perfect. 
In  the  desire  to  have  the  establishment  self-sufficient  at  all 
points,  more  has  been  attempted  than  human  nature  can 
achieve.  The  lad  is  taken  to  West  Point,  and  it  is  pre- 
sumed that  from  the  moment  of  his  reception  he  shall  ex- 
pend every  energy  of  his  mind  and  body  in  making  himself 
a  soldier.  At  fifteen  he  is  not  to  be  a  boy,  at  twenty  he  is 
not  to  be  a  young  man.  He  is  to  be  a  gentleman,  a  soldier, 
and  an  officer.  I  believe  that  those  who  leave  the  college 
for  the  army  are  gentlemen,  soldiers,  and  officers,  and,  there- 
fore, the  result  is  good.  But  they  are  also  young  men ;  and 
it  seems  that  they  have  become  so,  not  in  accordance  with 
their  training,  but  in  spite  of  it. 

But  I  have  another  complaint  to  make  against  the  author- 
ities of  W est  Point,  which  they  will  not  be  able  to  answer 
so  easily  as  that  already  preferred.  What  right  can  they 
have  to  take  the  very  prettiest  spot  on  the  Hudson — the 
prettiest  spot  on  the  continent — one  of  the  prettiest  spots 
which  Nature,  with  all  her  vagaries,  ever  formed — and  shut 
it  up  from  all  the  world  for  purposes  of  war  ?  Would  not 
any  plain,  however  ugly,  do  for  military  exercises  ?  Cannot 
broadsword,  goose-step,  and  double-quick  time  be  instilled 
into  young  hands  and  legs  in  any  field  of  thirty,  forty,  or 
fifty  acres  ?  I  wonder  whether  these  lads  appreciate  the 
fact  that  they  are  studying  fourteen  hours  a  day  amid  the 
sweetest  river,  rock,  and  mountain  scenery  that  the  imag- 
ination can  conceive.  Of  course  it  will  be  said  that  the 
world  at  large  is  not  excluded  from  West  Point,  that  the 
ferry  to  the  place  is  open,  and  that  there  is  even  a  hotel 
there,  closed  against  no  man  or  woman  who  will  consent 
to  become  a  teetotaller  for  the  period  of  his  visit.  I  must 
admit  that  this  is  so ;  but  still  one  feels  that  one  is  only 
admitted  as  a  guest.  I  want  to  go  and  live  at  West  Point, 
and  why  should  I  be  prevented  ?  The  government  had  a 
right  to  buy  it  of  course,  but  government  should  not  buy 
up  the  prettiest  spots  on  a  country's  surface.  If  I  were  an 
American,  I  should  make  a  grievance  of  this;  but  Amer- 
icans will  suffer  things  from  their  government  which  no 
Englishmen  would  endure. 

It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  West  Point  that  every- 
thing there  is  in  good  taste.    The  point  itself  consists  of  a 

17 


194  • 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


blaflf  of  land  so  formed  that  the  River  Hudson  is  forced  to 
run  round  three  sides  of  it.  It  is  consequently  a  peninsula; 
and  as  the  surrounding  country  is  mountainous  on  both 
sides  of  the  river,  it  may  be  imagined  that  the  site  is  good. 
The  views  both  up  and  down  the  river  are  lovely,  and  the 
mountains  behind  break  themselves  so  as  to  make  the  land- 
scape perfect.  But  this  is  not  all.  At  West  Point  there 
is  much  of  buildings,  much  of  military  arrangement  in  the 
way  of  cannons,  forts,  and  artillery  yards.  All  these  things 
are  so  contrived  as  to  group  themselves  well  into  pictures. 
There  is  no  picture  of  architectural  grandeur ;  but  every- 
thing stands  well  and  where  it  should  stand,  and  the  eye  is 
not  hurt  at  any  spot.  I  regard  West  Point  as  a  delightful 
place,  and  was  much  gratified  by  the  kindness  I  received 
there. 

From  West  Point  we  went  direct  to  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

AN  APOLOGY  FOR  THE  WAR. 

I  THINK  it  may  be  received  as  a  fact  that  the  Northern 
States,  taken  together,  sent  a  full  tenth  of  their  able-bodied 
men  into  the  ranks  of  the  army  in  the  course  of  the  summer 
and  autumn  of  1861.  The  South,  no  doubt,  sent  a  much 
larger  proportion ;  but  the  effect  of  such  a  drain  upon  the 
South  would  not  be  the  same,  because  the  slaves  were  left 
at  home  to  perform  the  agricultural  work  of  the  country.  I 
very  much  doubt  whether  any  other  nation  ever  made  such 
an  effort  in  so  short  a  time.  To  a  people  who  can  do  this 
it  may  well  be  granted  that  they  are  in  earnest ;  and  I  do 
not  think  it  should  be  lightly  decided  by  any  foreigner  that 
they  are  wrong.  The  strong  and  unanimous  impulse  of  a 
great  people  is  seldom  wrong.  And  let  it  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  this  case  both  people  maybe  right — the  people  both 
of  North  and  South.    Each  may  have  been  guided  by  a 


ENGLAND'S  NEUTRALITY. 


195 


just  and  noble  feeling,  though  each  waF5  brought  to  its  pres- 
ent condition  by  bad  government  and  dishonest  statesmen. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  since  the  commencement  of 
the  war  the  American  feeling  against  England  has  been  very 
bitter.  All  Americans  to  whom  I  spoke  on  the  subject  ad- 
mitted that  it  was  so.  I,  as  an  Englishman,  felt  strongly 
the  injustice  of  this  feeling,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of 
showing,  or  endeavoring  to  show,  that  the  line  of  conduct 
pursued  by  England  toward  the  States  was  the  only  line 
which  was  compatible  with  her  own  policy  and  just  interests 
and  also  with  the  dignity  of  the  States  government.  I 
heard  much  of  the  tender  sympathy  of  Russia.  Russia 
sent  a  flourishing  general  message,  saying  that  she  wished 
the  North  might  win,  and  ending  with  some  good  general 
advice  proposing  peace.  It  was  such  a  message  as  strong 
nations  send  to  those  which  are  weaker.  Had  England  ven- 
tured on  such  counsel,  the  diplomatic  paper  would  probably 
have  been  returned  to  her.  It  is,  I  think,  manifest  that  an 
absolute  and  disinterested  neutrality  has  been  the  only 
course  which  could  preserve  England  from  deserved  rebuke 
— a  neutrality  on  which  her  commercial  necessity  for  im- 
porting cotton  or  exporting  her  own  manufactures  should 
have  no  effect.  That  our  government  would  preserve  such 
a  neutrality  I  have  always  insisted  ;  and  I  believe  it  has 
been  done  with  a  pure  and  strict  disregard  to  any  selfish 
views  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain.  So  far  I  think  England 
may  feel  that  she  has  done  well  in  this  matter.  But  I  must 
confess  that  I  have  not  been  so  proud  of  the  tone  of  all  oar 
people  at  home  as  I  have  been  of  the  decisions  of  our  states- 
men. It  seems  to  me  that  some  of  us  never  tire  in  abusing 
the  Americans,  and  calling  them  names  for  having  allowed 
themselves  to  be  driven  into  this  civil  war.  We  tell  them 
that  they  are  fools  and  idiots  ;  we  speak  of  their  doings  as 
though  there  had  been  some  plain  course  by  which  the  war 
might  have  been  avoided  ;  and  we  throw  it  in  their  teeth 
that  tliey  have  no  capability  for  war.  We  tell  them  of  the 
debt  which  they  are  creating,  and  point  out  to  them  that 
they  can  never  pay  it.  We  laugh  at  their  attempt  to  sus- 
tain loyalty,  and  speak  of  them  as  a  steady  father  of  a  family 
is  wont  to  speak  of  some  unthrifty  prodigal  who  is  throwing 
away  his  estate  and  hurrying  from  one  ruinous  debauchery 
to  another.  And,  alas  !  we  too  frequently  allow  to  escape 
from  us  some  expression  of  that  satisfaction  which  one  rival 


196 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tradesman  has  in  the  downfall  of  anotlier.  "  Here  you  are 
with  all  your  boasting,"  is  what  we  say.  "You  were  going 
to  whip  all  creation  the  other  day ;  and  it  has  come  to  this  I 
Brag  is  a  good  dog,  but  Holdfast  is  a  better.  Pray  remem- 
ber that,  if  ever  you  find  yourselves  on  your  legs  again." 
That  little  advice  about  the  two  dogs  is  very  well,  and  was 
not  altogether  inapplicable.  But  this  is  not  the  time  in 
which  it  should  be  given.  Putting  aside  slight  asperities, 
we  will  all  own  that  the  people  of  the  States  have  been  and 
are  our  friends,  and  that  as  friends  we  cannot  spare  them. 
For  one  Englishman  who  brings  home  to  his  own  heart  a 
feeling  of  cordiality  for  France — a  belief  in  the  affection  of 
our  French  alliance — there  are  ten  who  do  so  with  reference 
to  the  States.  Now,  in  these  days  of  their  trouble,  I  think 
that  we  might  have  borne  with  them  more  tenderly. 

And  how  was  it  possible  that  they  should  have  avoided 
this  war  ?  I  will  not  now  go  into  the  cause  of  it,  or  discuss 
the  course  which  it  has  taken,  but  will  simply  take  up  the 
fact  of  the  rebellion.  The  South  rebelled  against  the  North ; 
and  such  being  the  case,  was  it  possible  that  the  North 
should  yield  without  a  war  ?  It  may  very  likely  be  well 
that  Hungary  should  be  severed  from  Austria,  or  Poland 
from  Russia,  or  Yenice  from  Austria.  Taking  Englishmen 
in  a  lump,  they  think  that  such  separation  would  be  well. 
The  subject  people  do  not  speak  the  language  of  those  that 
govern  them  or  enjoy  kindred  interests.  But  yet  when  mil- 
itary efforts  are  made  by  those  who  govern  Hungary,  Po- 
land, and  Yenice  to  prevent  such  separation,  we  do  not  say 
that  Russia  and  Austria  are  fools.  We  are  not  surprised 
that  they  should  take  up  arms  against  the  rebels,  but  would 
be  very  much  surprised  indeed  if  they  did  not  do  so.  We 
know  that  nothing  but  weakness  would  prevent  their  doing 
so.  But  if  Austria  and  Russia  insist  on  tying  to  themselves 
a  people  who  do  not  speak  their  language  or  live  in  accord- 
ance with  their  habits,  and  are  not  considered  unreasonable 
in  so  insisting,  how  much  more  thoroughly  would  they  carry 
with  them  the  sympathy  of  their  neighbors  in  preventing 
any  secession  by  integral  parts  of  their  own  nationalities  ! 
Would  England  let  Ireland  walk  off  by  herself,  if  she  wished 
it?  In  1843  she  did  wish  it.  Three-fourths  of  the  Irish 
population  would  have  voted  for  such  a  separation  ;  but  Eng- 
land would  have  prevented  such  a  secession  vi  et  armis,  had 
Ireland  driven  her  to  the  necessity  of  such  prevention. 


NORTH  AND  SOUTH  AGAIN. 


19t 


I  will  put  it  to  any  reader  of  history  whether,  since  gov- 
ernment commenced,  it  has  not  been  regarded  as  the  first 
duty  of  government  to  prevent  a  separation  of  the  territo- 
ries governed  ;  and  whether,  also,  it  has  not  been  regarded 
as  a  point  of  honor  with  all  nationalities  to  preserve  unin- 
jured each  its  own  greatness  and  its  own  power  ?  I  trust 
that  I  may  not  be  thought  to  argue  that  all  governments, 
or  even  all  nationalities,  should  succeed  in  such  endeavors. 
Few  kings  have  fallen,  in  my  day,  in  whose  fate  I  have  not 
rejoiced — none,  I  take  it,  except  that  poor  citizen  King  of 
the  French.  And  I  can  rejoice  that  England  lost  her  Amer- 
ican colonies,  and  shall  rejoice  when  Spain  has  been  deprived 
of  Cuba.  But  I  hold  that  citizen  King  of  the  French  in 
small  esteem,  seeing  that  he  made  no  fight ;  and  I  know 
that  England  was  bound  to  struggle  when  the  Boston  peo- 
ple threw  her  tea  into  the  water.  Spain  keeps  a  tighter 
hand  on  Cuba  than  we  thought  she  would  some  ten  years 
since,  and  therefore  she  stands  higher  in  the  world's  respect. 

It  may  be  well  that  the  South  should  be  divided  from  the 
North.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  would  be  well — at  any 
rate  for  the  North ;  but  the  South  must  have  been  aware 
that  such  division  could  only  be  effected  in  two  ways  :  either 
by  agreement,  in  which  case  the  proposition  must  have  been 
brought  forward  by  the  South  and  discussed  by  the  North, 
or  by  violence.  They  chose  the  latter  way,  as  being  the 
readier  and  the  surer,  as  most  seceding  nations  have  done. 
O'Connell,  when  struggling  for  the  secession  of  Ireland, 
chose  the  other,  and  nothing  came  of  it.  The  South  chose 
violence,  and  prepared  for  it  secretly  and  with  great  adroit- 
ness. If  that  be  not  rebellion,  there  never  has  been  rebel- 
lion since  history  began  ;  and  if  civil  war  was  ever  justified 
in  one  portion  of  a  nation  by  turbulence  in  another,  it  has 
now  been  justified  in  the  Northern  States  of  America. 

What  was  the  North  to  do  ;  this  foolish  North,  which 
has  been  so  liberally  told  by  us  that  she  has  taken  up  arms 
for  nothing,  that  she  is  fighting  for  nothing,  and  will  ruin 
herself  for  nothing  ?  When  was  she  to  take  the  first  step 
toward  peace  ?  Surely  every  Englishman  will  remember 
that  when  the  earliest  tidings  of  the  coming  quarrel  reached 
us  on  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  we  all  declared  that  any 
division  was  impossible ;  it  was  a  mere  madness  to  speak 
of  it.  The  States,  which  were  so  great  in  their  unity,  would 
never  consent  to  break  up  all  their  prestige  and  all  their 

17* 


198 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


power  by  a  separation  !  Would  it  have  been  well  for  the 
North  then  to  say,  "  If  the  South  wish  it  we  will  certainly 
separate  ?"  After  that,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  assumed  the 
power  to  which  he  had  been  elected,  and  declared  with  suf- 
ficient manliness,  and  sufficient  dignity  also,  that  he  would 
make  no  war  upon  the  South,  but  would  collect  the  customs 
and  carry  on  the  government,  did  we  turn  round  and  advise 
him  that  he  was  wrong  ?  No.  The  idea  in  England  then 
was  that  his  message  was,  if  anything,  too  mild.  "  If  he 
means  to  be  President  of  the  whole  Union,"  England  said, 
"  he  must  come  out  with  something  stronger  than  that." 
Then  came  Mr.  Seward's  speech,  which  was,  in  truth,  weak 
enough.  Mr,  Seward  had  ran  Mr.  Lincoln  very  hard  for 
the  President's  chair  on  the  Republican  interest,  and  was, 
most  unfortunately,  as  I  think,  made  Secretary  of  State  by 
Mr.  Lincoln,  or  by  his  party.  The  Secretary  of  State  holds 
the  highest  office  in  the  United  States  government  under 
the  President.  He  cannot  be  compared  to  our  Prime 
Minister,  seeing  that  the  President  himself  exercises  po- 
litical power,  and  is  responsible  for  its  exercise.  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's speech  simply  amounted  to  a  declaration  that  separa- 
tion was  a  thing  of  which  the  Union  would  neither  hear, 
speak,  nor,  if  possible,  think.  Things  looked  very  like  it ; 
but  no,  they  could  never  come  to  that  I  The  world  was 
too  good,  and  especially  the  American  world.  Mr.  Seward 
had  no  specific  against  secession  ;  but  let  every  free  man 
strike  his  breast,  look  up  to  heaven,  determine  to  be  good, 
and  all  would  go  right.  A  great  deal  had  been  expected 
from  Mr.  Seward,  and  when  this  speech  came  out,  we  in 
England  were  a  little  disappointed,  and  nobody  presumed 
even  then  that  the  North  would  let  the  South  go. 

It  will  be  argued  by  those  who  have  gone  into  the  details 
of  American  politics  that  an  acceptance  of  the  Crittenden 
compromise  at  this  point  would  have  saved  the  war.  What 
is  or  was  the  Crittenden  compromise  I  will  endeavor  to 
explain  hereafter ;  but  the  terms  and  meaning  of  that  com- 
promise can  have  no  bearing  on  the  subject.  The  Republi- 
can party  who  were  in  power  disapproved  of  that  com- 
promise, and  could  not  model  their  course  upon  it.  The 
Republican  party  may  have  been  right  or  may  have  been 
wrong ;  but  surely  it  will  not  be  argued  that  any  political 
party  elected  to  power  by  a  majority  should  follow  the 
policy  of  a  minority,  lest  that  minority  sliould  rebel.    I  can 


NORTH  AND  SOUTH  AGAIN. 


199 


conceive  of  no  government  more  lowly  placed  than  one  which 
deserts  the  policy  of  the  majority  which  supports  it,  fearing 
either  the  tongues  or  arms  of  a  minority. 

As  the  next  scene  in  the  play,  the  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina bombarded  Fort  Sumter.  Was  that  to  be  the  moment 
for  a  peaceable  separation  ?  Let  us  suppose  that  O'Connell 
had  marched  down  to  the  Pigeon  House,  at  Dublin,  and  had 
taken  it,  in  1843,  let  us  say,  would  that  have  been  an  argu- 
ment to  us  for  allowing  Ireland  to  set  up  for  herself?  Is 
that  the  way  of  men's  minds,  or  of  the  minds  of  nations  ? 
The  powers  of  the  President  were  defined  bylaw,  as  agreed 
upon  among  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  and  against  that 
power  and  against  that  law  South  Carolina  raised  her 
hand,  and  the  other  States  joined  her  in  rebellion.  When 
circumstances  had  come  to  that,  it  was  no  longer  possible 
that  the  North  should  shun  the  war.  To  my  thinking  the 
rights  of  rebellion  are  holy.  Where  would  the  world  have 
been,  or  where  would  the  world  hope  to  be,  without  rebel- 
lion ?  But  let  rebellion  look  the  truth  in  the  face,  and  not 
blanch  from  its  own  consequences.  She  has  to  judge  her 
own  opportunities  and  to  decide  on  her  own  fitness.  Success 
is  the  test  of  her  judgment.  But  rebellion  can  never  be  suc- 
cessful except  by  overcoming  the  power  against  which  she 
raises  herself.  She  has  no  right  to  expect  bloodless  tri- 
umphs ;  and  if  she  be  not  the  stronger  in  the  encounter 
which  she  creates,  she  must  bear  the  penalty  of  her  rash- 
ness. Rebellion  is  justified  by  being  better  served  than 
constituted  authority,  but  cannot  be  justified  otherwise. 
Now  and  again  it  may  happen  that  rebellion's  cause  is  so 
good  that  constituted  authority  will  fall  to  the  ground  at 
the  first  glance  of  her  sword.  This  was  so  the  other  day  in 
Naples,  when  Garibaldi  blew  away  the  king's  armies  with  a 
breath.  But  this  is  not  so  often.  Rebellion  knows  that  it 
must  fight,  and  the  legalized  power  against  which  rebels 
rise  must  of  necessity  tight  also. 

I  cannot  see  at  what  point  the  North  first  sinned ;  nor 
do  I  think  that  had  the  North  yielded,  England  would  have 
honored  her  for  her  meekness.  Had  she  yielded  without 
striking  a  blow,  she  would  have  been  told  that  she  had  suf- 
fered the  Union  to  drop  asunder  by  her  supineness.  She 
would  have  been  twitted  with  cowardice,  and  told  that  she 
was  no  match  for  Southern  energy.  It  would  then  have 
seemed  to  those  who  sat  in  judgment  on  her  that  she  might 


200 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


have  righted  everything  by  that  one  blow  from  which  she 
had  abstained.  But  having  struck  that  one  blow,  and  hav- 
ing found  that  it  did  not  suffice,  could  she  then  withdraw, 
give  way,  and  own  herself  beaten?  Has  it  been  so  usually 
with  Anglo-Saxon  pluck?  In  such  case  as  that,  would 
there  have  been  no  mention  of  those  two  dogs,  Brag  and 
Holdfast?  Tlie  man  of  the  Northern  States  knows  that 
he  has  bragged — bragged  as  loudly  as  his  English  fore- 
fathers. In  that  matter  of  bragging,  the  British  lion  and 
the  star-spangled  banner  may  abstain  from  throwing  mud 
at  each  other.  And  now  the  Northern  man  wishes  to  show 
that  he  can  hold  fast  also.  Looking  at  all  this  I  cannot 
see  that  peace  has  been  possible  to  the  North. 

As  to  the  question  of  secession  and  rebellion  being  one 
and  the  same  thing,  the  point  to  me  does  not  seem  to  bear 
an  argument.  The  confederation  of  States  had  a  common 
army,  a  common  policy,  a  common  capital,  a  common  gov- 
ernment, and  a  common  debt.  If  one  might  secede,  any 
or  all  might  secede,  and  where  then  would  be  their  property, 
their  debt,  and  their  servants  ?  A  confederation  with  such 
a  license  attached  to  it  would  have  been  simply  playing  at 
national  power.  If  New  York  had  seceded — a  State  which 
stretches  from  the  Atlantic  to  British  North  America — it 
would  have  cut  New  England  off  from  the  rest  of  the  Union. 
Was  it  legally  within  the  power  of  New  York  to  place  the 
six  States  of  New  England  in  such  a  position?  And  why 
should  it  be  assumed  that  so  suicidal  a  power  of  destroying 
a  nationality  should  be  inherent  in  every  portion  of  the 
nation  ?  The  States  are  bound  together  by  a  written  com- 
pact, but  that  compact  gives  each  State  no  such  power. 
Surely  such  a  power  would  have  been  specified  had  it  been 
intended  that  it  should  be  given.  But  there  are  axioms  in 
politics  as  in  mathematics,  which  recommend  themselves  to 
the  mind  at  once,  and  require  no  argument  for  their  proof. 
Men  who  are  not  argumentative  perceive  at  once  that  they 
are  true.    A  part  cannot  be  greater  than  the  whole. 

I  think  it  is  plain  that  the  remnant  of  the  Union  was 
bound  to  take  up  arms  against  those  States  which  had 
illegally  torn  themselves  off  from  her ;  and  if  so,  she  could 
only  do  so  with  such  weapons  as  were  at  her  hand.  The 
United  States  army  had  never  been  numerous  or  well  ap- 
pointed ;  and  of  such  "officers  and  equipments  as  it  pos- 
sessed, the  more  valuable  part  was  in  the  hands  of  the 


NORTH  AND  SOUTH  AGAIN. 


201 


Southerners.  It  was  clear  enongli  that  she  was  ill  pro- 
vided, and  that  in  going  to  war  she  was  undertaking  a 
work  as  to  which  she  had  still  to  learn  many  of  the  rudi- 
ments. But  Englishmen  should  be  the  last  to  twit  her  with 
such  ignorance.  It  is  not  yet  ten  years  since  we  were  all 
boasting  that  swords  and  guns  were  useless  things,  and 
that  military  expenditure  might  be  cut  down  to  any  mini- 
mum figure  that  an  economizing  Chancellor  of  the  Exche- 
quer could  name.  Since  that  we  have  extemporized  two 
if  not  three  armies.  There  are  our  volunteers  at  home; 
and  the  army  which  holds  India  can  hardly  be  considered 
as  one  with  that  which  is  to  maintain  our  prestige  in 
Europe  and  the  West.  We  made  some  natural  blunders 
in  the  Crimea,  but  in  making  those  blunders  we  taught  our- 
selves the  trade.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  the  Northern 
States  that  they  must  learn  these  lessons  in  fighting  their 
own  countrymen.  In  the  course  of  our  history  we  have 
suflered  the  same  calamity  more  than  once.  The  Round- 
heads, who  beat  the  Cavaliers  and  created  English  liberty, 
made  themselves  soldiers  on  the  bodies  of  their  country- 
men. But  England  was  not  ruined  by  that  civil  war;  nor 
was  she  ruined  by  those  which  preceded  it.  From  out  of 
these  she  came  forth  stronger  than  she  entered  them — . 
stronger,  better,  and  more  fit  for  a  great  destiny  in  the 
history  of  nations.  The  Northern  States  had  nearly  five 
hundred  thousand  men  under  arms  when  the  winter  of  1861 
commenced,  and  for  that  enormous  multitude  all  commis- 
sariat requirements  were  well  supplied.  Camps  and  bar- 
racks sprang  up  through  the  country  as  though  by  magic. 
Clothing  was  obtained  with  a  rapidity  that  has,  I  think, 
never  been  equaled.  The  country  had  not  been  prepared 
for  the  fabrication  of  arms,  and  yet  arras  were  put  into  the 
men's  hands  almost  as  quickly  as  the  regiments  could  be 
mustered.  The  eighteen  millions  of  the  Northern  States 
lent  themselves  to  the  effort  as  one  man.  Each  State  gave 
the  best  it  had  to  give.  Newspapers  were  as  rabid  against 
each  other  as  ever,  but  no  newspaper  could  live  which  did 
not  support  the  war.  "  The  South  has  rebelled  against  the 
law,  and  the  law  shall  be  supported."  This  has  been  the 
cry  and  the  heartfelt  feeling  of  all  men ;  and  it  is  a  feeling 
which  cannot  but  inspire  respect. 

We  have  heard  much  of  the  tyranny  of  the  present  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  and  of  the  tyranny  also  of 


202 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  people.  Tbey  have  both  been  very  tyrannical.  The 
"habeas  corpus"  has  been  suspended  by  the  word  of  one 
man.  Arrests  have  been  made  on  men  who  have  been 
hardly  suspected  of  more  than  secession  principles.  Arrests 
have,  I  believe,  been  made  in  cases  which  have  been  desti- 
tute even  of  any  fair  ground  for  such  suspicion.  News- 
papers have  been  stopped  for  advocating  views  opposed  to 
the  feelings  of  the  North,  as  freely  as  newspapers  were  ever 
stopped  in  France  for  opposing  the  Emperor.  A  man  has 
not  been  safe  in  the  streets  who  was  known  to  be  a  seces- 
sionist. It  must  be  at  once  admitted  that  opinion  in  the 
Northern  States  was  not  free  when  I  was  there.  But  has 
opinion  ever  been  free  anywhere  on  all  subjects?  In  the 
best  built  strongholds  of  freedom,  have  there  not  always 
been  questions  on  which  opinion  has  not  been  free;  and 
must  it  not  always  be  so  ?  When  the  decision  of  a  people 
on  any  matter  has  become,  so  to  say,  unanimous  —  when  it 
has  shown  itself  to  be  so  general  as  to  be  clearly  the  ex- 
pression of  the  nation's  voice  as  a  single  chorus,  that  deci- 
sion becomes  holy,  and  may  not  be  touched.  Could  any 
newspaper  be  produced  in  England  which  advocated  the 
overthrow  of  the  Queen  ?  And  why  may  not  the  passion 
for  the  Union  be  as  strong  with  the  Northern  States,  as 
the  passion  for  the  Crown  is  strong  with  us?  The  Crown 
with  us  is  in  no  danger,  and  therefore  the  matter  is  at  rest. 
But  I  think  we  must  admit  that  in  any  nation,  let  it  be 
ever  so  free,  there  may  be  points  on  which  opinion  must  be 
held  under  restraint.  And  as  to  those  summary  arrests, 
and  the  suspension  of  the  "habeas  corpus,"  is  there  not 
something  to  be  said  for  the  States  government  on  that 
head  also  ?  Military  arrests  are  very  dreadful,  and  the 
soul  of  a  nation's  liberty  is  that  personal  freedom  from 
arbitrary  interference  which  is  signified  to  the  world  by 
those  two  unintelligible  Latin  words.  A  man's  body  shall 
not  be  kept  in  duress  at  any  man's  will,  but  shall  be  brought 
up  into  open  court,  with  uttermost  speed,  in  order  that  the 
law  may  say  whether  or  no  it  should  be  kept  in  duress. 
That  I  take  it  is  the  meaning  of  "habeas  corpus,"  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  suspension  of  that  privilege  destroys 
all  freedom,  and  places  the  liberty  of  every  individual  at 
the  mercy  of  him  who  has  the  power  to  suspend  it.  Nothing 
can  be  worse  than  this :  and  such  suspension,  if  extended 
over  any  long  period  of  years,  will  certainly  make  a  nation 


SUSPENSION  OF  THE  HABEAS  CORPUS. 


203 


weak,  mean  spirited,  and  poor.  But  in  a  period  of  civil 
war,  or  even  of  a  widely-extended  civil  commotion,  things 
cannot  work  in  tlieir  accustomed  grooves.  A  lady  does 
not  willingly  get  out  of  her  bedroom-window  with  nothing 
on  but  her  nightgown;  but  when  her  house  is  on  fire  she 
is  very  thankful  for  an  opportunity  of  doing  so.  It  is  not 
long  since  the  "habeas  corpus"  was  suspended  in  parts  of 
Ireland,  and  absurd  arrests  were  made  almost  daily  when 
that  suspension  first  took  effect.  It  was  grievous  that 
there  should  be  necessity  for  such  a  step;  and  it  is  very 
grievous  now  that  such  necessity  should  be  felt  in  the 
Northern  States.  But  I  do  not  think  that  it  becomes  Eng- 
lishmen to  bear  hardly  upon  Americans  generally  for  what 
has  been  done  in  that  matter.  Mr.  Seward,  in  an  official 
letter  to  the  British  Minister  at  Washington — which  letter, 
through  official  dishonesty,  found  its  way  to  the  press — 
claimed  for  the  President  the  right  of  suspending  the 
"habeas  corpus"  in  the  States  whenever  it  might  seem  good 
to  him  to  do  so.  If  this  be  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
the  land,  which  I  think  must  be  doubted,  the  law  of  the 
land  is  not  favorable  to  freedom.  For  myself,  I  conceive 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward  have  been  wrong  in  their 
law,  and  that  no  such  right  is  given  to  the  President  by 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  This  I  will  attempt 
to  prove  in  some  subsequent  chapter.  But  I  think  it  must 
be  felt  by  all  who  have  given  any  thought  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  States,  that  let  what  may  be  the  letter  of  the 
law,  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States  have  had  no  such 
power.  It  is  because  the  States  have  been  no  longer 
united,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  has  had  the  power,  whether  it  be 
given  to  him  by  the  law  or  no. 

And  then  as  to  the  debt ;  it  seems  to  me  very  singular 
that  we  in  England  should  suppose  that  a  great  commercial 
people  would  be  ruined  by  a  national  debt.  As  regards 
ourselves,  I  have  always  looked  on  our  national  debt  as 
the  ballast  in  our  ship.  We  have  a  great  deal  of  ballast, 
but  then  the  ship  is  very  big.  The  States  also  are  taking 
in  ballast  at  a  rather  rapid  rate;  and  we  too  took  it  in 
quickly  when  we  were  about  it.  But  I  cannot  understand 
why  their  ship  should  not  carry,  without  shipwreck,  that 
which  our  ship  has  carried  without  damage,  and,  as  I  be- 
lieve, with  positive  advantage  to  its  sailing.  The  ballast, 
if  carried  honestly,  will  not,  I  think,  bring  the  vessel  to 


204 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


grief.  The  fear  is  lest  the  ballast  should  be  thrown  over- 
board. 

So  much  I  have  said  wishing  to  plead  the  cause  of  the 
Northern  States  before  the  bar  of  English  opinion,  and 
thinking  tliat  there  is  ground  for  a  plea  in  their  favor.  But 
yet  I  cannot  say  that  their  bitterness  against  Englishmen  has 
been  justified,  or  that  their  tone  toward  England  has  been 
dignified.  Their  complaint  is  that  they  have  received  no 
sympathy  from  England ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  a  great 
nation  should  not  require  an  expression  of  sympathy  during 
its  struggle.  Sympathy  is  for  the  weak  rather  than  for  the 
strong.  When  I  hear  two  powerful  men  contending  to- 
gether in  argument,  I  do  not  sympathize  with  him  who  has 
the  best  of  it ;  but  I  watch  the  precision  of  his  logic  and 
acknowledge  the  effects  of  his  rhetoric.  There  has  been  a 
whining  weakness  in  the  complaints  made  by  Americans 
against  England,  which  has  done  more  to  lower  them  as  a 
people  in  my  judgment  than  any  other  part  of  their  conduct 
during  the  present  crisis.  When  we  were  at  war  with  Rus- 
sia, the  feeling  of  the  States  was  strongly  against  us.  All 
their  wishes  were  with  our  enemies.  When  the  Indian  mu- 
tiny was  at  its  worst,  the  feeling  of  France  was  equally 
adverse  to  us.  The  joy  expressed  by  the  French  newspa- 
pers was  almost  ecstatic.  But  I  do  not  think  that  on  either 
occasion  we  bemoaned  ourselves  sadly  on  the  want  of  sym- 
pathy shown  by  our  friends.  On  each  occasion  we  took  the 
opinion  expressed  for  what  it  was  worth,  and  managed  to 
live  it  down.  We  listened  to  what  was  said,  and  let  it  pass 
by.  When  in  each  case  we  had  been  successful,  there  was 
an  end  of  our  friends'  croakings. 

But  in  the  Northern  States  of  America  the  bitterness 
against  England  has  amounted  almost  to  a  passion.  The 
players — those  chroniclers  of  the  time — have  had  no  hits 
so  sure  as  those  which  have  been  aimed  at  Englishmen  as 
cowards,  fools,  and  liars.  No  paper  has  dared  to  say  that 
England  has  been  true  in  her  American  policy.  The  name 
of  an  Englishman  has  been  made  a  by-word  for  reproach. 
In  private  intercourse  private  amenities  have  remained.  I, 
at  any  rate,  may  boast  that  such  has  been  the  case  as  re- 
gards myself.  But,  even  in  private  life,  I  have  been  unable 
to  keep  down  the  feeling  that  I  have  always  been  walking 
over  smothered  ashes. 

It  may  be  that,  when  the  civil  war  in  America  is  over,  all 


NEW  YORK, 


205 


this  will  pass  by,  and  there  will  be  nothing  left  of  interna- 
tional bitterness  but  its  memory.  It  is  sincerely  to  be  hoped 
that  this  may  be  so — tliat  even  the  memory  of  the  existing 
feeling  may  fade  away  and  become  unreal.  I  for  one  can- 
not think  that  two  nations  situated  as  are  the  States  and 
England  should  permanently  quarrel  and  avoid  each  other. 
But  words  have  been  spoken  which  will,  I  fear,  long  sound 
in  men's  ears,  and  thoughts  have  sprung  up  which  will  not 
easily  allow  themselves  to  be  extinguished. 


CHAPTER  XIY. 

NEW  YORK. 

Speaking  of  'New  York  as  a  traveler,  I  have  two  faults 
to  find  with  it.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  nothing  to  see  ; 
and,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  no  mode  of  getting  about 
to  see  anything.  Nevertheless,  New  York  is  a  most  inter- 
esting city.  It  is  the  third  biggest  city  in  the  known  world, 
for  those  Chinese  congregations  of  unwinged  ants  are  not 
cities  in  the  known  world.  In  no  other  city  is  there  a  pop- 
ulation so  mixed  and  cosmopolitan  in  their  modes  of  life. 
And  yet  in  no  other  city  that  I  have  seen  are  there  such 
strong  and  ever  visible  characteristics  of  the  social  and 
political  bearings  of  the  nation  to  which  it  belongs.  New 
York  appears  to  me  as  infinitely  more  American  than  Bos- 
ton, Chicago,  or  Washington.  It  has  no  peculiar  attribute 
of  its  own,  as  have  those  three  cities — Boston  in  its  litera- 
ture and  accomplished  intelligence,  Chicago  in  its  internal 
trade,  and  Washington  in  its  Congressional  and  State  pol- 
itics. New  York  has  its  literary  aspirations,  its  commercial 
grandeur,  and.  Heaven  knows,  it  has  its  politics  also.  But 
these  do  not  strike  the  visitor  as  being  specially  character- 
istic of  the  city.  That  it  is  pre-eminently  American  is  its 
glory  or  its  disgrace,  as  men  of  different  ways  of  thinking 
may  decide  upon  it.  Free  institutions,  general  education,  and 
the  ascendency  of  dollars  are  the  words  written  on  every 
paving-stone  along  Fifth  Avenue,  down  Broadway,  and  up 

18 


206 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Wall  Street.  Every  man  can  vote,  and  values  the  privi- 
lege, Ever}^  man  can  read,  and  uses  the  privilege.  Every 
man  worships  the  dollar,  and  is  down  before  his  shrine  from 
morning  to  night. 

As  regards  voting  and  reading,  no  American  will  be  angry 
with  me  for  saying  so  much  of  him  ;  and  no  Englishman, 
whatever  may  be  his  ideas  as  to  the  franchise  in  his  own 
country,  will  conceive  that  I  have  said  aught  to  the  dishonor 
of  an  American.  But  as  to  that  dollar-worshiping,  it  will 
of  course  seem  that  I  am  abusing  the  New  Yorkers.  We 
all  know  what  a  wretchedly  wicked  thing  money  is — how  it 
stands  between  us  and  Heaven — how  it  hardens  our  hearts 
and  makes  vulgar  our  thoughts  !  Dives  has  ever  gone  to 
the  devil,  while  Lazarus  has  been  laid  up  in  heavenly  lav- 
ender. The  hand  that  employs  itself  in  compelling  gold  to 
enter  the  service  of  man  has  always  been  stigmatized  as 
the  ravisher  of  things  sacred.  The  world  is  agreed  about 
that,  and  therefore  the  New  Yorker  is  in  a  bad  way. 
There  are  very  few  citizens  in  any  town  known  to  me  which 
under  this  dispensation  are  in  a  good  way,  but  the  New 
Yorker  is  in  about  the  worst  way  of  all.  Other  men,  the 
world  over,  worship  regularly  at  the  shrine  with  matins  and 
vespers,  nones  and  complines,  and  whatever  other  daily  ser- 
vices may  be  known  to  the  religious  houses ;  but  the  New 
Yorker  is  always  on  his  knees. 

That  is  the  amount  of  the  charge  which  I  bring  against 
New  York ;  and  now,  having  laid  on  my  paint  thickly,  I 
shall  proceed,  like  an  unskillful  artist,  to  scrape  a  great  deal 
of  it  off  again.  New  York  has  been  a  leading  commercial 
city  in' the  world  for  not  more  than  fifty  or  sixty  years.  As 
far  as  I  can  learn,  its  population  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century  did  not  exceed  60,000,  and  ten  years  later  it  had 
not  reached  100,000.  In  1860  it  had  reached  nearly  800,000 
in  the  City  of  New  York  itself.  To  this  number  must  be 
added  the  numbers  of  Brooklyn,  Williamsburg,  and  Jer- 
sey City,  in  order  that  a  true  conception  may  be  had 
of  the  population  of  this  American  metropolis,  seeing  that 
those  places  are  as  much  a  part  of  New  York  as  Southwark 
is  of  London.  By  this  the  total  will  be  swelled  to  consid- 
erably above  a  million.  It  will  no  doubt  be  admitted  that 
this  growth  has  been  very  fast,  and  that  New  York  may  well 
be  proud  of  it.  Increase  of  population  is,  I  take  it,  the 
only  trustworthy  sign  of  a  nation's  success  or  of  a  city's 


,    NEW  YORK. 


207 


success.  We  boast  that  London  has  beaten  the  other  cities 
of  the  world,  and  think  that  that  boast  is  enough  to  cover 
all  the  social  sins  for  which  London  has  to  confess  her  guilt. 
New  York,  beginning  with  00,000  sixty  years  since,  has  now 
a  million  souls — a  million  mouths,  all  of  which  eat  a  suffi- 
ciency of  bread,  all  of  which  speak  ore  rotundo,  and  almost 
all  of  which  can  read.  And  this  has  come  of  its  love  of 
dollars. 

For  myself  I  do  not  believe  that  Dives  is  so  black  as  he 
is  painted  or  that  his  peril  is  so  imminent.  To  reconcile 
such  an  opinion  with  holy  writ  might  place  me  in  some  dif- 
ficulty were  I  a  clergyman.  Clergymen,  in  these  days,  are 
surrounded  by  difficulties  of  this  nature — finding  it  neces- 
sary to  explain  away  many  old-established  teachings  which 
narrowed  the  Christian  Church,  and  to  open  the  door  wide 
enough  to  satisfy  the  aspirations  and  natural  hopes  of  in- 
structed men.  The  brethren  of  Dives  are  now  so  many  and 
so  intelligent  that  they  will  no  longer  consent  to  be  damned 
without  looking  closely  into  the  matter  themselves.  I  will 
leave  them  to  settle  the  matter  with  the  Church,  merely  as- 
suring them  of  my  sympathy  in  their  little  difficulties  in  any 
case  in  which  mere  money  causes  the  hitch. 

To  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow  was  man's  curse 
in  Adam's  day,  but  is  certainly  man's  blessing  in  our  day. 
And  what  is  eating  one's  bread  in  the  sweat  of  one's  brow 
but  making  money  ?  I  will  believe  no  man  who  tells  me 
that  he  would  not  sooner  earn  two  loaves  than  one — and  if 
two,  then  two  hundred.  I  will  believe  no  man  who  tells  me 
that  he  would  sooner  earn  one  dollar  a  day  than  two — and 
if  two,  then  two  hundred.  That  is,  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  argument,  caeteris  paribus.  When  a  man  tells  me  that 
he  would  prefer  one  honest  loaf  to  two  that  are  dishonest, 
I  will,  in  all  possible  cases,  believe  him.  So  also  a  man 
may  prefer  one  quiet  loaf  to  two  that  are  unquiet.  But 
under  circumstances  that  are  the  same,  and  to  a  man  who 
is  sane,  a  whole  loaf  is  better  than  half,  and  two  loaves  are 
better  than  one.  The  preachers  have  preached  well,  but  on 
this  matter  they  have  preached  in  vain.  Dives  has  never 
believed  that  he  will  be  damned  because  he  is  Dives.  He 
has  never  even  believed  that  the  temptations  incident  to  his 
position  have  been  more  than  a  fair  counterpoise,  or  even 
so  much  as  a  fair  counterpoise,  to  his  opportunities  for  doing 
good.    All  men  who  work  desire  to  prosper  by  their  work, 


208 


NORTH  AMERICA, 


and  they  so  desire  by  the  nature  given  to  them  from  God. 
Wealth  and  progress  must  go  on  hand  in  hand  together,  let 
the  accidents  which  occasionally  divide  them  for  a  time  hap- 
pen as  often  as  they  may.  The  progress  of  the  Americans 
has  been  caused  by  their  aptitude  for  money-making ;  and 
that  continual  kneeling  at  the  shrine  of  the  coined  goddess 
has  carried  them  across  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco. 
Men  who  kneel  at  that  shrine  are  called  on  to  have  ready 
wits  and  quick  hands,  and  not  a  little  aptitude  for  self-denial 
The  New  Yorker  has  been  true  to  his  dollar  because  his 
dollar  has  been  true  to  him. 

But  not  on  this  account  can  I,  nor  on  this  account  will 
any  Englishman,  reconcile  himself  to  the  savor  of  dollars 
which  pervades  the  atmosphere  of  New  York.  The  ars 
celare  arlem  is  wanting.  The  making  of  money  is  the 
work  of  man;  but  he  need  not  take  his  work  to  bed  with 
him,  and  have  it  ever  by  his  side  at  table,  amid  his  family, 
in  church,  while  he  disports  himself,  as  he  declares  his  pas- 
sion to  the  girl  of  his  heart,  in  the  moments  of  his  softest 
bliss,  and  at  the  periods  of  his  most  solemn  ceremonies. 
That  many  do  so  elsewhere  than  in  New  York — in  London, 
for  instance,  in  Paris,  among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland, 
and  the  steppes  of  Russia — I  do  not  doubt.  But  there  is 
generally  a  vail  thrown  over  the  object  of  the  worshiper's 
idolatry.  In  New  York  one's  ear  is  constantly  tilled  with 
the  fanatic's  voice  as  he  prays,  one's  eyes  are  always  on  the 
familiar  altar.  The  frankincense  from  the  temple  is  ever 
in  one's  nostrils.  I  have  never  walked  down  Fifth  Avenue 
alone  without  thinking  of  money.  I  have  never  walked 
there  with  a  companion  without  talking  of  it.  I  fancy  that 
every  man  there,  in  order  to  maintain  the  spirit  of  the 
place,  should  bear  on  his  forehead  a  label  stating  how  many 
dollars  he  is  worth,  and  that  every  label  should  be  expected 
to  assert  a  falsehood. 

I  do  not  think  that  New  York  has  been  less  generous  in 
the  use  of  its  money  than  other  cities,  or  that  the  men  of 
New  York  generally  are  so.  Perhaps  I  might  go  farther 
and  say  that  in  no  city  has  more  been  achieved  for  humanity 
by  the  munificence  of  its  richest  citizens  than  in  New  York. 
Its  hospitals,  asylums,  and  institutions  for  the  relief  of  all 
ailments  to  which  flesh  is  heir,  are  very  numerous,  and  be- 
yond praise  in  the  excellence  of  their  arrangements.  And 
this  has  been  achieved  in  a  great  degree  by  private  liberality. 


THE  ALMIGHTY  DOLLAR. 


209 


Men  in  America  are  not  as  a  rule  anxious  to  leave  large 
fortunes  to  their  children.  The  millionaire  when  making 
his  will  very  generally  gives  back  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  wealth  which  he  has  made  to  the  city  in  which  he  made 
it.  The  rich  citizen  is  always  anxious  that  the  poor  citizen 
shall  be  relieved.  It  is  a  point  of  honor  with  him  to  raise 
the  character  of  his  municipality,  and  to  provide  that  the 
deaf  and  dumb,  the  blind,  the  mad,  the  idiots,  the  old,  and 
the  incurable  shall  have  such  alleviation  in  their  misfortune 
as  skill  and  kindness  can  afford. 

Nor  is  the  New  Yorker  a  hugger-mugger  with  his  money. 
He  does  not  hide  up  his  dollars  in  old  stockings  and  keep 
rolls  of  gold  in  hidden  pots.  He  does  not  even  invest  it 
where  it  will  not  grow  but  only  produce  small  though  sure 
fruit.  He  builds  houses,  he  speculates  largely,  he  spreads 
himself  in  trade  to  the  extent  of  his  wings — and  not  seldom 
somewhat  farther.  He  scatters  his  wealth  broadcast  over 
strange  fields,  trusting  that  it  may  grow  with  an  increase 
of  a  hundredfold,  but  bold  to  bear  the  loss  should  the 
strange  field  prove  itself  barren.  His  regret  at  losing  his 
money  is  by  no  means  commensurate  with  his  desire  to 
make  it.  In  this  there  is  a  living  spirit  which  to  me  divests 
the  dollar-worshiping  idolatry  of  something  of  its  ugliness. 
The  hand  when  closed  on  the  gold  is  instantly  reopened. 
The  idolator  is  anxious  to  get,  but  he  is  anxious  also  to 
spend.  He  is  energetic  to  the  last,  and  has  no  comfort 
with  his  stock  unless  it  breeds  with  Transatlantic  rapidity 
of  procreation. 

So  much  I  say,  being  anxious  to  scrape  off"  some  of  that 
daub  of  black  paint  with  which  I  have  smeared  the  face  of 
my  New  Yorker ;  but  not  desiring  to  scrape  it  all  off.  For 
myself,  I  do  not  love  to  live  amid  the  clink  of  gold,  and 
never  have  "a  good  time,"  as  the  Americans  say,  when  the 
price  of  shares  and  percentages  come  up  in  conversation. 
That  state  of  men's  minds  here  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
explain  tends,  I  think,  to  make  New  York  disagreeable. 
A  stranger  there  who  has  no  great  interest  in  percentages 
soon  finds  himself  anxious  to  escape.  By  degrees  he  per- 
ceives that  he  is  out  of  his  element,  and  had  better  go 
away.  He  calls  at  the  bank,  and  when  he  shows  himself 
ignorant  as  to  the  price  at  which  his  sovereigns  should  be 
done,  he  is  conscious  that  he  is  ridiculous.  He  is  like  a 
man  who  goes  out  hunting  for  the  first  time  at  forty  vears 

18*' 


210 


NOllTII  AMERICA. 


of  age.  He  feels  himself  to  be  in  the  wrong  place,  and  is 
anxious  to  get  out  of  it.  Such  was  ray  experience  of  New 
York,  at  each  of  the  visits  that  I  paid  to  it. 

But  yet,  I  say  again,  no  other  American  city  is  so  in- 
tensely American  as  New  York.  It  is  generally  considered 
that  the  inhabitants  of.New  England,  the  Yankees  properly 
so  called,  have  the  American  characteristics  of  physiognomy 
in  the  fullest  degree.  The  lantern  jaws,  the  thin  and  lithe 
body,  the  dry  face  on  which  there  has  been  no  tint  of  the 
rose  since  the  baby's  long-clothes  were  first  abandoned,  the 
harsh,  thick  hair,  the  thin  lips,  the  intelligent  eyes,  the 
sharp  voice  with  the  nasal  twang — not  altogether  harsh, 
though  sharp  and  nasal — all  these  traits  are  supposed  to 
belong  especially  to  the  Yankee.  Perhaps  it  was  so  once, 
but  at  present  they  are,  I  think,  more  universally  common 
in  New  York  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  States.  Go  to 
Wall  Street,  the  front  of  the  Astor  House,  and  the  regions 
about  Trinity  Church,  and  you  will  find  them  in  their  fullest 
perfection. 

What  circumstances  of  blood  or  food,  of  early  habit  or 
subsequent  education,  have  created  for  the  latter-day  Ameri- 
can his  present  physiognomy  ?  It  is  as  completely  marked, 
as  much  his  own,  as  is  that  of  any  race  under  the  sun  that 
has  bred  in  and  in  for  centuries.  But  the  American  owns 
a  more  mixed  blood  than  any  other  race  known.  The 
chief  stock  is  English,  which  is  itself  so  mixed  tliat  no  man 
can  trace  its  ramifications.  With  this  are  mingled  the 
bloods  of  Ireland,  Holland,  France,  Sweden,  and  Germany. 
All  this  has  been  done  within  but  a  few  years,  so  that  the 
American  may  be  said  to  have  no  claim  to  any  national 
type  of  face.  Nevertheless,  no  man  has  a  type  of  face  so 
clearly  national  as  the  American.  He  is  acknowledged  by 
it  all  over  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  on  his  own  side  of 
the  water  is  gratified  by  knowing  that  he  is  never  mistaken 
for  his  English  visitor.  I  think  it  comes  from  the  hot-air 
pipes  and  from  dollar  worship.  In  the  Jesuit  his  mode  of 
dealing  with  things  divine  has  given  a  peculiar  cast  of 
countenance ;  and  why  should  not  the  American  be  simi- 
larly moulded  by  his  special  aspirations?  As  to  the  hot- 
air  pipes,  there  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt  that  to  them  is  to 
be  charged  the  murder  of  all  rosy  cheeks  throughout  the 
States.  If  the  efiect  was  to  be  noticed  simply  in  the  dry 
faces  of  the  men  about  Wall  Street,  I  should  be  very  indif- 


NEW  YORK  OMNIBUSES. 


211 


ferent  to  the  matter.  But  the  young  ladies  of  Fifth  Avenue 
are  in  the  same  category.  The  very  pith  and  marrow  of 
life  is  baked  out  of  their  young  bones  by  the  hot-air  cham- 
bers to  which  they  are  accustomed.  Hot  air  is  the  great 
destroyer  of  American  beauty. 

In  saying  that  there  is  very  little  to  be  seen  in  I^cwYork 
I  have  also  said  that  there  is  no  way  of  seeing  that  little. 
My  assertion  amounts  to  this;  that  there  are  no  cabs.  To 
the  reading  world  at  large  this  may  not  seem  to  be  much, 
but  let  the  reading  workl  go  to  New  York,  and  it  will  find 
out  how  much  the  deficiency  means.  In  London,  in  Paris, 
in  Florence,  in  Rome,  in  the  Havana,  or  at  Grand  Cairo, 
the  cab-driver  or  attendant  does  not  merely  drive  the  cab 
or  belabor  the  donkey,  but  he  is  the  visitor's  easiest  and 
cheapest  guide.  In  London,  the  Tower,  Westminster  Ab- 
bey, and  Madame  Tussaud  are  found  by  the  stranger  with- 
out difficulty,  and  almost  without  a  thought,  because  the 
cab-driver  knows  the  whereabouts  and  the  way.  Space  is 
moreover  annihilated,  and  the  huge  distances  of  the  Eng- 
lish metropolis  are  brought  within  the  scope  of  mortal 
power.    But  in  New  York  there  is  no  such  institution. 

In  New  York  there  are  street  omnibuses  as  we  have — ■ 
•  there  are  street  cars  such  as  last  year  we  declined  to  have, 
and  there  are  very  excellent  public  carriages ;  but  none  of 
these  give  you  the  accommodation  of  a  cab,  nor  can  all  of 
them  combined  do  so.  The  omnibuses,  though  clean  and 
excellent,  were  to  me  very  unintelligible.  They  have  no 
conductor  to  them.  To  know  their  different  lines  and 
usages  a  man  should  have  made  a  scientific  study  of  the 
city.  To  those  going  up  and  down  Broadway  I  became 
accustomed,  but  in  them  I  was  never  quite  at  my  ease. 
The  money  has  to  be  paid  through  a  little  hole  behind  the 
driver's  back,  and  should,  as  I  learned  at  last,  be  paid  im- 
mediately on  entrance.  *  But  in  getting  up  to  do  this  I 
always  stumbled  about,  and  it  would  happen  that  when 
with  considerable  difficulty  I  had  settled  my  own  account, 
two  or  three  ladies  would  enter,  and  would  hand  me,  with- 
out a  word,  some  coins  with  which  I  had  no  life-long  famil- 
iarity, in  order  that  I  might  go  through  the  same  ceremony 
on  their  account.  The  change  I  would  usually  drop  into 
ihe  straw,  and  then  there  would  arise  trouble  and  unhappi- 
ness.  Before  I  became  aware  of  that  law  as  to  instant  pay- 
ment, bells  used  to  be  rung  at  me,  which  made  me  uneasy. 


212 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  knew  I  was  not  behaving  as  a  citizen  should  behave,  but 
could  not  compass  the  exact  points  of  my  delinquency. 
And  then,  when  I  desired  to  escape,  the  door  being  strapped 
up  tight,  I  would  halloo  vainly  at  the  driver  through  the 
little  hole;  whereas,  had  I  known  my  duty,  I  should  have 
rung  a  bell,  or  pulled  a  strap,  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  omnibus  in  question.  In  a  month  or  two  all  these 
things  may  possibly  be  learned;  but  the  visitor  requires 
his  facilities  for  locomotion  at  the  first  moment  of  his  en- 
trance into  the  city.  I  heard  it  asserted  by  a  lecturer  in 
Boston,  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips,  whose  name  is  there  a  house- 
hold word,  that  citizens  of  the  United  States  carried  brains 
in  their  fingers  as  well  as  in  their  heads;  whereas  "common 
people,"  by  which  Mr.  Phillips  intended  to  designate  the 
remnant  of  mankind  beyond  the  United  States,  were  blessed 
with  no  such  extended  cerebral  development.  Having  once 
learned  this  fact  from  Mr.  Phillips,  I  understood  why  it  was 
that  a  New  York  omnibus  should  be  so  disagreeable  to  me, 
and  at  the  same  time  so  suitable  to  the  wants  of  the  New 
Yorkers. 

And  then  there  are  street  cars — very  long  omnibuses — • 
which  run  on  rails  but  are  dragged  by  horses.  They  are 
capable  of  holding  forty  passengers  each,  and  as  far  as  my 
experience  goes  carry  an  average  load  of  sixty.  The  fare 
of  the  omnibus  is  six  cents,  or  three  pence.  That  of  the 
street  car  five  cents,  or  two  pence  halfpenny.  They  run 
along  the  different  avenues,  taking  the  length  of  the  city. 
In  the  upper  or  new  part  of  the  town  their  course  is  sim- 
ple enough,  but  as  they  descend  to  the  Bowery,  Peck  Slip, 
and  Pearl  Street,  nothing  can  be  conceived  more  difficult 
or  devious  than  their  courses.  The  Broadway  omnibus,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  a  straightforward,  honest  vehicle  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  town,  becoming,  however,  dangerous  and 
miscellaneous  when  it  ascends  to*  Union  Square  and  the 
vicinities  of  fashionable  life. 

The  street  cars  are  manned  with  conductors,  and,  there- 
fore, are  free  from  many  of  the  perils  of  the  omnibus;  but 
they  have  perils  of  their  own.  They  are  always  quite  full. 
By  that  I  mean  that  every  seat  is  crowded,  that  there  is  a 
double  row  of  men  and  women  standing  down  the  center, 
and  that  the  driver's  platform  in  front  is  full,  and  also  the 
conductor's  platform  behind.  That  is  the  normal  condition 
of  a  street  car  in  the  Third  Avenue.    You,  as  a  stranger 


AMERICAN  WOMEN. 


213 


in  the  middle  of  the  car,  wish  to  be  put  down  at,  let  us 
say,  89th  Street.  In  the  map  of  New  York  now  before 
me,  the  cross  streets  running  from  east  to  west  are  num- 
bered up  northward  as  far  as  154th  Street.  It  is  quite  use- 
less for  you  to  give  the  number  as  you  enter.  Even  an 
American  conductor,  with  brains  all  over  him,  and  an 
anxious  desire  to  accommodate,  as  is  the  case  with  all 
these  men,  cannot  remember.  You  are  left  therefore  in 
misery  to  calculate  the  number  of  the  street  as  you  move 
along,  vainly  endeavoring  through  the  misty  glass  to 
decipher  the  small  numbers  which  after  a  day  or  two  you 
perceive  to  be  written  on  the  lamp  posts. 

But  I  soon  gave  up  all  attempts  at  keeping  a  seat  in  one 
of  these  cars.  It  became  my  practice  to  sit  down  on  the 
outside  iron  rail  behind,  and  as  the  conductor  generally  sat 
in  my  lap  I  was  in  a  measure  protected.  As  for  the  inside 
of  these  vehicles  the  women  of  New  York  were,  I  must 
confess,  too  much  for  me.  I  would  no  sooner  place  myself 
on  a  seat,  than  I  would  be  called  on  by  a  mute,  unexpress- 
ive,  but  still  impressive  stare  into  my  face,  to  surrender 
my  place.  From  cowardice  if  not  from  gallantry  I  would 
always  obey;  and  as  this  led  to  discomfort  and  an  irritated 
spirit,  I  preferred  nursing  the  conductor  on  the  hard  bar  in 
the  rear. 

And  here  if  I  seem  to  say  a  word  against  women  in 
America,  I  beg  that  it  may  be  understood  that  I  say  that 
word  only  against  a  certain  class;  and  even  as  to  that  class 
I  admit  that  they  are  respectable,  intelligent,  and,  as  I  be- 
lieve, industrious.  Their  manners,  however,  are  to  me  more 
odious  than  those  of  any  other  human  beings  that  I  ever 
met  elsewhere.  Nor  can  I  go  on  with  that  which  I  have  to 
say  without  carrying  my  apology  further,  lest,  perchance, 
I  should  be  misunderstood  by  some  American  women  whom 
I  would  not  only  exclude  from  my  censure,  but  would  in- 
clude in  the  very  warmest  eulogium  which  words  of  mine 
could  express  as  to  those  of  the  female  sex  whom  I  love 
and  admire  the  most.  I  have  known,  do  know,  and  mean 
to  continue  to  know  as  far  as  in  me  may  lie,  American 
ladies  as  bright,  as  beautiful,  as  graceful,  as  sweet,  as  mor- 
tal limits  for  brightness,  beauty,  grace,  and  sweetness  will 
permit.  They  belong  to  the  aristocracy  of  the  land,  by 
whatever  means  they  may  have  become  aristocrats.  In 
America  one  does  not  inquire  as  to  their  birth,  their  train- 


214 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing,  or  their  old  names.  The  fact  of  their  aristocratic 
power  comes  out  in  every  word  and  look.  It  is  not  only 
so  with  those  who  have  traveled  or  with  those  who  are 
rich.  I  have  found  female  aristocrats  with  families  and 
slender  means,  who  have  as  yet  made  no  grand  tour  across 
the  ocean.  These  women  are  charming  beyond  expression. 
It  is  not  only  their  beauty.  Had  he  been  speaking  of  such, 
Wendell  Phillips  would  have  been  right  in  saying  that  they 
have  brains  all  over  them.  So  mucli  for  those  who  are 
bright  and  beautiful,  who  are  graceful  and  sweet !  And 
now  a  word  as  to  those  who  to  me  are  neither  bright  nor 
beautiful,  and  who  can  be  to  none  either  graceful  or  sweet. 

It  is  a  hard  task,  that  of  speaking  ill  of  any  woman ;  but 
it  seems  to  me  that  he  who  takes  upon  himself  to  praise 
incurs  the  duty  of  dispraising  also  where  dispraise  is,  or  to 
him  seems  to  be,  deserved.  The  trade  of  a  novelist  is 
very  much  that  of  describing  the  softness,  sweetness,  and 
loving  dispositions  of  women;  and  this  he  does,  copying 
as  best  he  can  from  nature.  But  if  he  only  sings  of  that 
which  is  sweet,  whereas  that  which  is  not  sweet  too  fre- 
quently presents  itself,  his  song  will  in  the  end  be  untrue 
and  ridiculous.  Women  are  entitled  to  much  observance 
from  men,  but  they  are  entitled  to  no  observance  which  is 
incompatible  with  truth.  Women,  by  the  conventional 
laws  of  society,  are  allowed  to  exact  much  from  men,  but 
they  are  allowed  to  exact  nothing  for  which  they  should 
not  make  some  adequate  return.  It  is  well  that  a  man 
should  kneel  in  spirit  before  the  grace  and  weakness  of  a 
woman,  but  it  is  not  well  that  he  should  kneel  either  in 
spirit  or  body  if  there  be  neither  grace  nor  weakness.  A 
man  should  yield  everything  to  a  woman  for  a  word,  for  a 
smile — to  one  look  of  entreaty.  But  if  there  be  no  look 
of  entreaty,  no  word,  no  smile,  I  do  not  see  that  he  is 
called  upon  to  yield  much. 

The  happy  privileges  with  which  women  are  at  present 
blessed  have  come  to  them  from  the  spirit  of  chivalry. 
That  spirit  has  taught  man  to  endure  in  order  that  women 
may  be  at  their  ease  ;  and  has  generally  taught  women  to 
accept  the  ease  bestowed  on  them  with  grace  and  thankful- 
ness. But  in  America  the  spirit  of  chivalry  has  sunk  deeper 
among  men  than  it  has  among  women.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  in  that  country  material  well-being  and  education 
are  more  extended  than  with  us ;  and  that,  therefore,  men 


AMERICAN  WOMEN. 


215 


there  have  learned  to  be  chivalrous  who  with  us  have  hardly 
progressed  so  far.  The  conduct  of  men  to  women  through- 
out the  States  is  always  gracious.  They  have  learned  the 
lesson.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  women  have  not  ad- 
vanced as  far  as  the  men  have  done.  They  have  acquired  a 
sufficient  perception  of  the  privileges  which  chivalry  gives 
them,  but  no  perception  of  that  return  which  chivalry  de- 
mands from  them.  Women  of  the  class  to  which  I  allude 
are  always  talking  of  their  rights,  but  seem  to  have  a  most 
indifferent  idea  of  their  duties.  They  have  no  scruple  at 
demanding  from  men  everything  that  a  man  can  be  called 
on  to  relinquish  in  a  woman's  behalf,  but  they  do  so  without 
any  of  that  grace  which  turns  the  demand  made  into  a  favor 
conferred. 

I  have  seen  much  of  this  in  various  cities  of  America,  but 
muclTmore  of  it  in  New  York  than  elsewhere.  I  have  heard 
young  Americans  complain  of  it,  swearing  that  they  must 
change  the  whole  tenor  of  their  habits  toward  women.  I 
have  heard  American  ladies  speak  of  it  with  loathing  and 
disgust.  For  myself,  I  have  entertained  on  sundry  oc- 
casions that  sort  of  feeling  for  an  American  woman  which 
the  close  vicinity  of  an  unclean  animal  produces.  I  have 
spoken  of  this  with  reference  to  street  cars,  because  in  no 
position  of  life  does  an  unfortunate  man  become  more  liable 
to  these  anti-feminine  atrocities  than  in  the  center  of  one  of 
these  vehicles.  The  woman,  as  she  enters,  drags  after  her  a 
misshapen,  dirty  mass  of  battered  wirework,  which  she  calls 
her  crinoline,  and  which  adds  as  much  to  her  grace  and 
comfort  as  a  log  of  wood  does  to  a  donkey  when  tied  to  the 
animal's  leg  in  a  paddock.  Of  this  she  takes  much  heed, 
not  managing  it  so  that  it  may  be  conveyed  up  the  carriage 
with  some  decency,  but  striking  it  about  against  men's  legs, 
and  heaving  it  with  violence  over  people's  knees.  The  touch 
of  a  real  woman's  dress  is  in  itself  delicate  ;  but  these  blows 
from  a  harpy's  fins  are  as  loathsome  as  a  snake's  slime.  If 
there  be  two  of  them  they  talk  loudly  together,  having  a 
theory  that  modesty  has  been  put  out  of  court  by  women's 
rights.  But,  though  not  modest,  the  woman  I  describe  is 
ferocious  in  her  propriety.  She  ignores  the  whole  world 
around  her  as  she  sits ;  with  a  raised  chin  and  face  flattened 
by  atfectation,  she  pretends  to  declare  aloud  that  she  is 
positively  not  aware  that  any  man  is  even  near  her.  She 
speaks  as  though  to  her,  in  her  womanhood,  the  neighbor- 


21G 


KORTH  AMERICA. 


hood  of  men  was  the  same  as  that  of  dogs  or  cats.  They 
are  there,  but  she  does  not  hear  them,  see  them,  or  even 
acknowledge  them  by  any  courtesy  of  motion.  But  her  own 
face  always  gives  her  the  lie.  In  her  assumption  of  indiffer- 
ence she  displays  her  nasty  consciousness,  and  in  each  at- 
tempt at  a  would-be  propriety  is  guilty  of  an  immodesty. 
"Who  does  not  know  the  timid  retiring  face  of  the  young 
girl  who  when  alone  among  men  unknown  to  her  feels  that 
it  becomes  her  to  keep  herself  secluded  ?  As  many  men  as 
there  are  around  her,  so  many  knights  has  such  a  one,  ready 
bucklered  for  her  service,  should  occasion  require  such  ser- 
vices. Should  it  not,  she  passes  on  unmolested — but  not, 
as  she  herself  will  wrongly  think,  unheeded.  But  as  to  her 
of  whom  I  am  speaking,  we  may  say  that  every  twist  of  her 
body  and  every  tone  of  her  voice  is  an  unsuccessful  false- 
hood. She  looks  square  at  you  in  the  face,  and  you  rise  to 
give  her  your  seat.  You  rise  from  a  deference  to  your  own 
old  convictions,  and  from  that  courtesy  which  you  have  ever 
paid  to  a  woman's  dress,  let  it  be  worn  with  ever  such  hide- 
ous deformities.  She  takes  the  place  from  which  you  have 
moved  without  a  word  or  a  bow.  She  twists  herself  round, 
banging  your  shins  with  her  wires,  while  her  chin  is  still 
raised,  and  her  face  is  still  flattened,  and  ^ she  directs  her 
friend's  attention  to  another  seated  man,  as  though  that 
place  were  also  vacant,  and  necessarily  at  her  disposure. 
Perhaps  the  man  opposite  has  his  own  ideas  about  chivalry. 
I  have  seen  such  a  thing,  and  have  rejoiced  to  see  it. 

Yow  will  meet  these  women  daily,  hourly,  everywhere  in 
the  streets.  Now  and  again  you  will  find  them  in  society, 
making  themselves  even  more  odious  there  than  elsewhere. 
Who  they  are,  whence  they  come,  and  why  they  are  so  unlike 
that  other  race  of  women  of  which  1  have  spoken,  you  will 
settle  for  yourself.  Do  we  not  all  say  of  our  chance  ac- 
quaintances, after  half  an  hour's  conversation,  nay,  after 
half  an  hour  spent  in  the  same  room  without  conversation, 
that  this  woman  is  a  lady,  and  that  that  other  woman  is 
not  ?  They  jostle  each  other  even  among  us,  but  never 
seem  to  mix.  They  are  closely  allied;  but  neither  imbues 
the  other  with  her  attributes.  Both  shall  be  equally  well 
born,  or  both  shall  be  equally  ill  born ;  but  still  it  is  so. 
The  contrast  exists  in  England  ;  but  in  America  it  is  much 
stronger.  In  England  women  become  ladylike  or  vulgar. 
In  the  States  they  are  either  charming  or  odious. 


STREET  CARS. 


21t 


See  that  female  walking  down  Broadway.  She  is  not 
exactly  such  a  one  as  her  I  have  attempted  to  describe  on 
her  entrance  into  the  street  car ;  for  this  lady  is  well  dressed, 
if  fine  clothes  will  make  well  dressing.  The  machinery  of 
her  hoops  is  not  battered,  and  altogether  she  is  a  personage 
much  more  distinguished  in  all  her  expenditures.  But  yet 
she  is  a  copy  of  the  other  woman.  Look  at  the  train  which 
she  drags  behind  her  over  the  dirty  pavement,  where  dogs 
have  been,  and  chewers  of  tobacco,  and  everything  con- 
cerned with  filth  except  a  scavenger.  At  every  hundred 
yards  some  unhappy  man  treads  upon  the  silken  swab  which 
she  trails  behind  her — loosening  it  dreadfully  at  the  girth 
one  would  say ;  and  then  see  the  style  of  face  and  the  ex- 
pression of  features  with  which  she  accepts  the  sinner's  half 
muttered  apology.  The  world,  she  supposes,  owes  her 
everything  because  of  her  silken  train,  even  room  enough  in 
a  crowded  thoroughfare  to  drag  it  along  unmolested.  But, 
according  to  her  theory,  she  owes  the  world  nothing  in  re- 
turn. She  is  a  woman  with  perhaps  a  hundred  dollars  on 
her  back,  and  having  done  the  world  the  honor  of  wearing 
them  in  the  world's  presence,  expects  to  be  repaid  by  the 
world's  homage  and  chivalry.  But  chivalry  owes  her  no- 
thing— nothing,  though  she  walk  about  beneath  a  hundred 
times  a  hundred  dollars — nothing,  even  though  she  be  a 
woman.  Let  every  woman  learn  this,  that  chivalry  owes 
her  nothing  unless  she  also  acknowledges  her  debt  to  chiv- 
alry. She  must  acknowledge  it  and  pay  it ;  and  then 
chivalry  will  not  be  backward  in  making  good  her  claims 
upon  it. 

All  this  has  come  of  the  street  cars.  But  as  it  was  neces- 
sary that  I  should  say  it  somewhere,  it  is  as  well  said  on  that 
subject  as  on  any  other.  And  now  to  continue  with  the 
street  cars.  They  run,  as  I  have  said,  the  length  of  the 
town,  taking  parallel  lines.  They  will  take  you  from  the 
Astor  House,  near  the  bottom  of  the  town,  for  miles  and 
miles  northward — half  way  up  the  Hudson  River — for,  I 
believe,  five  pence.  They  are  very  slow,  averaging  about 
five  miles  an  hour ;  but  they  are  very  sure.  For  regular 
inhabitants,  who  have  to  travel  five  or  six  miles  perhaps  to 
their  daily  work,  they  are  excellent.  I  have  nothing  really 
to  say  against  the  street  cars.  But  they  do  not  fill  the  place 
of  cabs. 

There  are,  however,  public  carriages — roomy  vehicles, 
19 


218 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


dragged  by  two  horses,  clean  and  nice,  and  very  well  suited 
to  ladies  visiting  tlie  city.  But  they  have  none  of  the  at- 
tributes of  the  cab.  As  a  rule,  they  are  not  to  be  found 
standing  about.  They  are  very  slow.  They  are  very  dear. 
A  dollar  an  hour  is  the  regular  charge  ;  but  one  cannot 
regulate  one's  motion  by  the  hour.  Going  out  to  dinner 
and  back  costs  two  dollars,  over  a  distance  which  in  London 
would  cost  two  shillings.  As  a  rule,  the  cost  is  four  times 
that  of  a  cab,  and  the  rapidity  half  that  of  a  cab.  Under 
these  circumstances,  I  think  I  am  justified  in  saying  that 
there  is  no  mode  of  getting  about  in  New  York  to  see 
anything. 

And  now  as  to  the  other  charge  against  New  York,  of 
there  being  nothing  to  see.  How  should  there  be  anything 
there  to  see  of  general  interest  ?  In  other  large  cities — 
cities  as  large  in  name  as  New  York — there  are  works  of 
art,  fine  buildings,  ruins,  ancient  churches,  picturesque  cos- 
tumes, and  the  tombs  of  celebrated  men.  But  in  New  York 
there  are  none  of  these  things.  Art  has  not  yet  grown  up 
there.  One  or  two  fine  figures  by  Crawford  are  in  the  town, 
especially  that  of  the  Sorrowing  Indian,  at  the  rooms  of  the 
Historical  Society;  but  art  is  a  luxury  in  a  city  which  fol- 
lows but  slowly  on  the  heels  of  wealth  and  civilization.  Of 
fine  buildings — which,  indeed,  are  comprised  in  art — there 
are  none  deserving  special  praise  or  remark.  It  might  well 
have  been  that  New  York  should  ere  this  have  graced  her- 
self with  something  grand  in  architecture;  but  she  has  not 
done  so.  Some  good  architectural  effect  there  is,  and  much 
architectural  comfort.  Of  ruins,  of  course,  there  can  be 
none — none,  at  least,  of  such  ruins  as  travelers  admire, 
though  perhaps  some  of  that  sort  which  disgraces  rather 
than  decorates.  Churches  there  are  plenty,  but  none  that 
are  ancient.  The  costume  is  the  same  as  our  own  ;  and  I 
need  hardly  say  that  it  is  not  picturesque.  And  the  time 
for  the  tombs  of  celebrated  men  has  not  yet  come.  A  great 
man's  ashes  are  hardly  of  value  till  they  have  all  but  ceased 
to  exist. 

The  visitor  to  New  York  must  seek  his  gratification  and 
obtain  his  instruction  from  the  habits  and  manners  of  men. 
The  American,  though  he  dresses  like  an  Englishman,  and 
eats  roast  beef  with  a  silver  fork — or  sometimes  with  a  steel 
knife — as  does  an  Englishman,  is  not  like  an  Englishman  in 
his  mind,  in  his  aspirations,  in  his  tastes,  or  in  his  politics. 


ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN  CHARACTERISTICS.  219 


In  his  mind  he  is  quicker,  more  universally  intelligent,  more 
ambitious  of  general  knowledge,  less  indulgent  of  stupidity 
and  ignorance  in  others,  harder,  sharper,  brighter  with  the 
surface  brightness  of  steel,  than  is  an  Englishman  ;  but  he 
is  more  brittle,  less  enduring,  less  malleable,  and,  I  think, 
less  capable  of  impressions.  The  mind  of  the  Englishman 
has  more  imagination,  but  that  of  the  American  more  in- 
cision. The  American  is  a  great  observer  ;  but  he  observes 
things  material  rather  than  things  social  or  picturesque. 
He  is  a  constant  and  ready  speculator;  but  all  speculations, 
even  those  which  come  of  philosophy,  are  with  him  more  or 
less  material.  In  his  aspirations  the  American  is  more  con- 
stant than  an  Englishman — or  I  should  rather  say  he  is  more 
constant  in  aspiring.  Every  citizen  of  the  United  States 
intends  to  do  something.  Every  one  thinks  himself  capa- 
ble of  some  effort.  But  in  his  aspirations  he  is  more  limited 
than  an  Englishman.  The  ambitious  American  never  soars 
so  high  as  the  ambitious  Englishman.  He  does  not  even 
see  up  to  so  great  a  height,  and,  when  he  has  raised  himself 
somewhat  above  the  crowd,  becomes  sooner  dizzy  with  his 
own  altitude.  An  American  of  mark,  though  always  anx- 
ious to  show  his  mark,  is  always  fearful  of  a  fall.  In  his 
tastes  the  American  imitates  the  Frenchman.  Who  shall 
dare  to  say  that  he  is  WTong,  seeing  that  in  general  matters 
of  design  and  luxury  the  French  have  won  for  themselves 
the  foremost  name  ?  I  will  not  say  that  the  American  is 
wrong,  but  I  cannot  avoid  thinking  that  he  is  so.  I  detest 
what  is  called  French  taste ;  but  the  world  is  against  me. 
When  I  complained  to  a  landlord  of  a  hotel  out  in  the  West 
that  his  furniture  was  useless ;  that  I  could  not  write  at  a 
marble  table  whose  outside  rim  was  curved  into  fantastic 
shapes ;  that  a  gold  clock  in  my  bed-room  which  did  not  go 
would  give  me  no  aid  in  washing  myself ;  that  a  heavy,  im- 
movable curtain  shut  out  the  light ;  and  that  papier-mache 
chairs  with  small,  fluffy  velvet  seats  were  bad  to  sit  on,  he  an- 
swered me  completely  by  telling  me  that  his  house  had  been 
furnished  not  in  accordance  with  the  taste  of  England,  but 
with  that  of  France.  I  acknowledged  the  rebuke,  gave  up  my 
pursuits  of  literature  and  cleanliness,  and  hurried  out  of  the 
house  as  quickly  as  I  could.  All  America  is  now  furnishing 
itself  by  the  rules  which  guided  that  hotel-keeper.  I  do 
not  merely  allude  to  actual  household  furniture — to  chairs, 
tables,  and  detestable  gilt  clocks.    The  taste  of  America  is 


220 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


becoming  French  in  its  conversation,  French  in  its  comforts 
and  French  in  its  discomforts,  French  in  its  eating  and 
French  in  its  dress,  French  in  its  manners,  and  will  become 
French  in  its  art.  There  are  those  who  will  say  that  Eng- 
lish taste  is  taking  the  same  direction.  I  do  not  think  so. 
I  strongly  hope  that  it  is  not  so.  And  therefore  I  say  that 
an  Englishman  and  an  American  differ  in  their  tastes. 

But  of  all  differences  between  an  Englishman  and  an 
American,  that  in  politics  is  the  strongest  and  the  most  es- 
sential. I  cannot  here,  in  one  paragraph,  define  that  differ- 
ence with  sufficient  clearness  to  make  my  definition  satisfac- 
tory; but  I  trust  that  some  idea  of  that  difference  may  be 
conveyed  by  the  general  tenor  of  my  book.  The  American 
and  the  Englishman  are  both  republicans.  The  govern- 
ments of  the  States  and  of  England  are  probably  the  two 
purest  republican  governments  in  the  world.  I  do  not,  of 
course,  here  mean  to  say  that  the  governments  are  more 
pure  than  others,  but  that  the  systems  are  more  absolutely 
republican.  And  yet  no  men  can  be  much  farther  asunder 
in  politics  than  the  Englishman  and  the  American.  The 
American  of  the  present  day  puts  a  ballot-box  into  the 
hands  of  every  citizen,  and  takes  his  stand  upon  that  and 
that  only.  It  is  the  duty  of  an  American  citizen  to  vote ; 
and  when  he  has  voted,  he  need  trouble  himself  no  further 
till  the  time  for  voting  shall  come  round  again.  The  can- 
didate for  whom  he  has  voted  represents  his  will,  if  he  have 
voted  with  the  majority;  and  in  that  case  he  has  no  right 
to  look  for  further  influence.  If  he  have  voted  with  the 
minority,  he  has  no  right  to  look  for  any  influence  at  all. 
In  either  case  he  has  done  his  political  work,  and  may  go 
about  his  business  till  the  next  year,  or  the  next  two  or  four 
years,  shall  have  come  round.  The  Englishman,  on  the 
other  hand,  will  have  no  ballot-box,  and  is  by  no  means  in- 
clined to  depend  exclusively  upon  voters  or  upon  voting. 
As  far  as  voting  can  show  it,  he  desires  to  get  the  sense  of 
the  country ;  but  he  does  not  think  that  that  sense  will  be 
shown  by  universal  suffrage.  He  thinks  that  property 
amounting  to  a  thousand  pounds  will  show  more  of  that 
sense  than  property  amounting  to  a  hundred  ;  but  he  vrill 
not,  on  that  account,  go  to  work  and  apportion  votes  to 
wealth.  He  thinks  that  the  educated  can  show  more 
of  that  sense  than  the  uneducated  ;  but  he  does  not  there- 
fore lay  down  any  rule  about  reading,  writing,  and  arithme- 


ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN  POLITICS. 


221 


tic,  or  apportion  votes  to  learning.  He  prefers  that  all  these 
opinions  of  his  shall  bring  themselves  out  and  operate  by 
their  own  intrinsic  weight.  Nor  does  he  at  all  confine  him- 
self to  voting,  in  his  anxiety  to  get  the  sense  of  the  country. 
He  takes  it  in  any  way  that  it  will  show  itself,  uses  it  for 
what  it  is  worth,  or  perhaps  far  more  than  it  is  worth,  and 
welds  it  into  that  gigantic  lever  by  which  the  political  action 
of  the  country  is  moved.  Every  man  in  Great  Britain, 
whether  he  possesses  any  actual  vote  or  no,  can  do  that 
which  is  tantamount  to  voting  every  day  of  his  life  by  the 
mere  expression  of  his  opinion.  Public  opinion  in  America 
has  hitherto  been  nothing,  unless  it  has  managed  to  express 
itself  by  a  majority  of  ballot-boxes.  Public  opinion  in 
England  is  everything,  let  votes  go  as  they  may.  Let  the 
people  want  a  measure,  and  there  is  no  doubt  of  their  ob- 
taining it.  Only  the  people  must  want  it — as  they  did  want 
Catholic  emancipation,  reform,  and  corn-law  repeal,  and  as 
they  would  want  war  if  it  were  brought  home  to  them  that 
their  country  was  insulted. 

In  attempting  to  describe  this  difference  in  the  political  ac- 
tion of  the  two  countries,  I  am  very  far  from  taking  all  praise 
for  England  or  throwing  any  reproach  on  the  States.  The 
political  action  of  the  States  is  undoubtedly  the  more  logical 
and  the  clearer.  That,  indeed,  of  England  is  so  illogical 
and  so  little  clear  that  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  any 
other  nation  to  assume  it,  merely  by  resolving  to  do  so. 
Whereas  the  political  action  of  the  States  might  be  assumed 
by  any  nation  to-morrow,  and  all  its  strength  might  be  car- 
ried across  the  water  in  a  few  written  rules  as  are  the  pre- 
scriptions of  a  physician  or  the  regulations  of  an  infirmary. 
With  us  the  thing  has  grown  of  habit,  has  been  fostered  by 
tradition,  has  crept  up  uncared  for,  and  in  some  parts  un- 
noticed. It  can  be  written  in  no  book,  can  be  described  in  no 
words,  can  be  copied  by  no  statesmen,  and  I  almost  believe 
can  be  understood  by  no  people  but  that  to  whose  peculiar 
uses  it  has  been  adapted. 

In  speaking  as  I  have  here  done  of  American  taste  and 
American  politics,  I  must  allude  to  a  special  class  of  Ameri- 
cans who  are  to  be  met  more  generally  in  New  York  than  else- 
where— men  vv^ho  are  educated,  who  have  generally  traveled, 
who  are  almost  always  agreeable,  but  who,  as  regards  their 
politics,  are  to  me  the  most  objectionable  of  all  men.  As 
regards  taste  they  are  objectionable  to  me  also.    But  that 

19* 


222 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


is  a  small  thing ;  and  as  they  are  quite  as  likely  to  be  right 
as  I  am,  I  will  say  nothing  against  their  taste.  But  in  politics 
it  seems  to  me  that  these  men  liave  fallen  into  the  bitterest 
and  perhaps  into  the  basest  of  errors.  Of  the  man  who 
begins  his  life  with  mean  political  ideas,  having  sucked 
them  in  with  his  mother's  milk,  there  may  be  some  hope. 
The  evil  is  at  any  rate  the  fault  of  his  forefathers  rather 
than  of  himself.  But  who  can  have  hope  of  him  who,  having 
been  thrown  by  birth  and  fortune  into  the  running  river  of 
free  political  activity,  has  allowed  himself  to  be  drifted  into 
the  stagnant  level  of  general  political  servility  ?  There  are 
very  many  such  Americans.  They  call  themselves  repub- 
licans, and  sneer  at  the  idea  of  a  limited  monarchy,  but  they 
declare  that  there  is  no  republic  so  safe,  so  equal  for  all 
men,  so  purely  democratic  as  that  now  existing  in  France. 
Under  the  French  Empire  all  men  are  equal.  There  is  no 
aristocracy  ;  no  oligarchy  ;  no  overshadowing  of  the  little  by 
the  great.  One  superior  is  admitted — admitted  on  earth,  as 
a  superior  is  also  admitted  in  heaven.  Under  him  every- 
thing is  level,  and,  provided  he  be  not  impeded,  everything 
is  free.  He  knows  how  to  rule,  and  the  nation,  allowing 
him  the  privilege  of  doing  so,  can  go  along  its  course  safely ; 
can  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry.  If  few  men  can  rise  high,  so 
also  can  few  men  fall  low.  Political  equality  is  the  one 
thing  desirable  in  a  commonwealth,  and  by  this  arrangement 
political  equality  is  obtained.  Such  is  the  modern  creed 
of  many  an  educated  republican  of  the  States. 

To  me  it  seems  that  such  a  political  state  is  about  the 
vilest  to  which  a  man  can  descend.  It  amounts  to  a  tacit 
abandonment  of  the  struggle  which  men  are  making  for  po- 
litical truth  and  political  beneficence,  in  order  that  bread 
and  meat  may  be  eaten  in  peace  during  the  score  of  years  or 
so  that  are  at  the  moment  passing  over  us.  The  politicians 
of  this  class  have  decided  for  themselves  that  the  summum 
bonum  is  to  be  found  in  bread  and  the  circus  games.  If 
they  be  free  to  eat,  free  to  rest,  free  to  sleep,  free  to  drink 
little  cups  of  coffee,  while  the  world  passes  before  them,  on  a 
boulevard,  they  have  tha.t  freedom  which  they  covet.  But 
equality  is  necessary  as  well  as  freedom.  There  must  be  no 
towering  trees  in  this  parterre  to  overshadow  the  clipped 
shrubs,  and  destroy  the  uniformity  of  a  growth  which  should 
never  mount  more  than  two  feet  above  the  earth.  The 
equality  of  this  politician  would  forbid  any  to  rise  above  him 


NEW  YORK  INSTITUTIONS. 


223 


instead  of  inviting  all  to  rise  up  to  him.  It  is  the  equality  of 
fear  and  of  selfishness,  and  not  the  equality  of  courage  and 
philanthropy.  And  brotherhood,  too,  must  be  invoked — fra- 
ternity as  we  may  better  call  it  in  the  jargon  of  the  school. 
Such  politicians  tell  one  much  of  fraternity,  and  define  it 
too.  It  consists  in  a  general  raising  of  the  hat  to  all  man- 
kind ;  in  a  daily  walk  that  never  hurries  itself  into  a  jostling 
trot,  inconvenient  to  passengers  on  the  pavement ;  in  a  placid 
voice,  a  soft  smile,  and  a  small  cup  of  coffee  on  a  boulevard. 
It  means  all  this,  but  I  could  never  find  that  it  meant  any 
more.  There  is  a  nation  for  which  one  is  almost  driven  to 
think  that  such  political  aspirations  as  these  are  suitable  ; 
but  that  nation  is  certainly  not  the  States  of  America. 

And  yet  one  finds  many  American  gentlemen  who  have 
allowed  themselves  to  be  drifted  into  such  a  theory.  They 
have  begun  the  world  as  republican  citizens,  and  as  such 
they  must  go  on.  But  in  their  travels  and  their  studies, 
and  in  the  luxury  of  their  life,  they  have  learned  to  dislike 
the  rowdiness  of  their  country's  politics.  They  want  things 
to  be  soft  and  easy ;  as  republican  as  you  please,  but  with 
as  little  noise  as  possible.  The  President  is  there  for  four 
years.  Why  not  elect  him  for  eight,  for  twelve,  or  for  life  ? — 
for  eternity  if  it  were  possible  to  find  one  who  could  con- 
tinue to  live  ?  It  is  to  this  way  of  thinking  that  Americans 
are  driven,  when  the  polish  of  Europe  has  made  the  rough- 
ness of  their  own  elections  odious  to  them. 

"  Have  you  seen  any  of  our  great  institootions,  sir  ?" 
That  of  course  is  a  question  which  is  put  to  every  English- 
man who  has  visited  New  York,  and  the  Englishman  who 
intends  to  say  that  he  has  seen  New  York,  should  visit 
many  of  them.  I  went  to  schools,  hospitals,  lunatic  asy- 
lums, institutes  for  deaf  and  dumb,  water-works,  historical 
societies,  telegraph  offices,  and  large  commercial  establish- 
ments. I  rather  think  that  I  did  my  work  in  a  thorough 
and  conscientious  manner,  and  I  owe  much  gratitude  to 
those  who  guided  me  on  such  occasions.  Perhaps  I  ought 
to  describe  all  these  institutions ;  but  were  I  to  do  so,  I 
fear  that  I  should  inflict  fifty  or  sixty  very  dull  pages  on  my 
readers.  If  I  could  make  all  that  I  saw  as  clear  and  intel- 
ligible to  others  as  it  was  made  to  me  who  saw  it,  I  might 
do  some  good.  But  I  know  that  I  should  fail.  I  marveled 
much  at  the  developed  intelligence  of  a  room  full  of  deaf 
and  dumb  pupils,  and  was  greatly  astonished  at  the  per- 


224 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


formance  of  one  special  girl,  who  seemed  to  be  brighter  and 
quicker,  and  more  rapidly  easy  with  her  pen  than  girls  gen- 
erally are  who  can  hear  and  talk  ;  but  I  cannot  convey  my 
enthusiasm  to  others.  On  such  a  subject  a  writer  may  be 
correct,  may  be  exhaustive,  may  be  statistically  great ;  but 
he  can  hardly  be  entertaining,  and  the  chances  are  that  he 
will  not  be  instructive. 

In  all  such  matters,  however.  New  York  is  pre-eminently 
great.  All  through  the  States  suffering  humanity  receives 
so  much  attention  that  humanity  can  hardly  be  said  to  suf- 
fer. The  daily  recurring  boast  of  "our  glorious  institoo- 
tions,  sir,"  always  provokes  the  ridicule  of  an  Englishman. 
The  words  have  become  ridiculous,  and  it  would,  I  think, 
be  well  for  the  nation  if  the  term  Institution "  could  be 
excluded  from  its  vocabulary.  But,  in  truth,  they  are 
glorious.  The  country  in  this  respect  boasts,  but  it  has 
done  that  which  justifies  a  boast.  The  arrangements  for 
supplying  New  York  with  water  are  magnificent.  The 
drainage  of  the  new  part  of  the  city  is  excellent.  The 
hospitals  are  almost  alluring.  The  lunatic  asylum  which  I 
saw  was  perfect — though  I  did  not  feel  obliged  to  the  resi- 
dent physician  for  introducing  me  to  all  the  worst  patients 
as  countrymen  of  my  own.  "An  English  lady,  Mr.  Trol- 
lope.  I'll  introduce  you.  Quite  a  hopeless  case.  Two 
old  women.  They've  been  here  fifty  years.  They're  Eng- 
lish. Another  gentleman  from  England,  Mr.  Trollope.  A 
very  interesting  case  I    Confirmed  inebriety." 

And  as  to  the  schools,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  mention 
them  with  too  high  a  praise.  I  am  speaking  here  specially 
of  New  York,  though  I  might  say  the  same  of  Boston,  or 
of  all  New  England.  I  do  not  know  any  contrast  that 
would  be  more  surprising  to  an  Englishman,  up  to  that 
moment  ignorant  of  the  matter,  than  that  which  he  would 
find  by  visiting  first  of  all  a  free  school  in  London,  and 
then  a  free  school  in  New  York.  If  he  would  also  learn 
the  number  of  children  that  are  educated  gratuitously  in 
each  of  the  two  cities,  and  also  the  number  in  each  which 
altogether  lack  education,  he  would,  if  susceptible  of  sta- 
tistics, be  surprised  also  at  that.  But  seeing  and  hearing 
are  always  more  effective  than  mere  figures.  The  female 
pupil  at  a  free  school  in  London  is,  as  a  rule,  either  a  rag- 
ged pauper  or  a  charity  girl,  if  not  degraded,  at  least  stig- 
matized by  the  badges  and  dress  of  the  charity.    We  Eng- 


NEW  YORK  FREE  SCHOOLS. 


225 


lishmen  know  well  the  type  of  each,  and  have  a  fairly  correct 
idea  of  the  amount  of  education  Avhieh  is  imparted  to  them. 
We  see  the  result  afterward  when  the  same  girls  become 
our  servants,  and  tlie  wives  of  our  grooms  and  porters. 
The  female  pupil  at  a  free  school  in  New  York  is  neither  a 
pauper  nor  a  charity  girl.  She  is  dressed  with  the  utmost 
decency.  She  is  perfectly  cleanly.  In  speaking  to  her, 
you  cannot  in  any  degree  guess  whether  her  father  has 
a  dollar  a  day,  or  three  thousand  dollars  a  year.  Nor 
will  you  be  enabled  to  guess  by  the  manner  in  which  her 
associates  treat  her.  As  regards  her  own  manner  to  you, 
it  is  always  the  same  as  though  her  father  were  in  all  re- 
spects your  equal.  As  to  the  amount  of  her  knowledge,  I 
fairly  confess  that  it  is  terrific.  When  in  the  first  room 
which  I  visited,  a  slight,  slim  creature  was  had  up  before  me 
to  explain  to  me  the  properties  of  the  hypothenuse,  I  fairly 
confess  that,  as  regards  education,  I  backed  down,  and  that 
I  resolved  to  confine  my  criticisms  to  manner,  dress,  and 
general  behavior.  In  the  next  room  I  was  more  at  my 
ease,  finding  that  ancient  Roman  history  was  on  the  tapis. 
"Why  did  the  Romans  run  away  with  the  Sabine  women?" 
asked  the  mistress,  herself  a  young  woman  of  about  three 
and  twenty.  "Because  they  were  pretty,"  simpered  out  a 
little  girl  with  a  cherry  mouth.  The  answer  did  not  give 
complete  satisfaction,  and  then  followed  a  somewhat  abstruse 
explanation  on  the  subject  of  population.  It  was  all  done 
with  good  faith  and  a  serious  intent,  and  showed  what  it 
was  intended  to  show — that  the  girls  there  educated  had  in 
truth  reached  the  consideration  of  important  subjects,  and 
that  they  were  leagues  beyond  that  terrible  repetition  of 
A  B  C,  to  which,  I  fear,  that  most  of  our  free  metropolitan 
schools  are  still  necessarily  confined.  You  and  I,  reader, 
were  we  called  on  to  superintend  the  education  of  girls  of 
sixteen,  might  not  select,  as  favorite  points  either  the 
hypothenuse  or  the  ancient  methods  of  populating  young 
colonies.  There  may  be,  and  to  us  on  the  European  side 
of  the  Atlantic  there  will  be,  a  certain  amount  of  absurdity 
in  the  Transatlantic  idea  that  all  knowledge  is  knowledge, 
and  that  it  should  be  imparted  if  it  be  not  knowledge  of 
evil.  But  as  to  the  general  result,  no  fair-minded  man  or 
woman  can  have  a  doubt.  That  the  lads  and  girls  in  these 
schools  are  excellently  educated,  comes  home  as  a  fact  to  the 
mind  of  any  one  who  will  look  into  the  subject.    That  girl 


226 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


could  not  have  got  as  fair  at  the  hypothenuse  without  a 
competent  and  abiding  knowledge  of  much  that  is  very  far 
beyond  the  outside  limits  of  what  such  girls  know  with  us. 
It  was  at  least  manifest  in  the  other  examination  that  the 
girls  knew  as  well  as  I  did  who  were  the  Romans,  and  who 
were  the  Sabine  women.  That  all  this  is  of  use,  was  shown 
in  the  very  gestures  and  bearings  of  the  girl.  Emollit 
mores,  as  Colonel  Newcombe  used  to  say.  That  young 
woman  whom  I  had  watched  while  she  cooked  her  hus- 
band's dinner  upon  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  had 
doubtless  learned  all  about  the  Sabine  women,  and  I  feel 
assured  that  she  cooked  her  husband's  dinner  all  the  better 
for  that  knowledge — and  faced  the  hardships  of  the  world 
with  a  better  front  than  she  would  have  done  had  she  been 
ignorant  on  the  subject. 

In  order  to  make  a  comparison  between  the  schools  of 
London  and  those  of  New  York,  I  have  called  them  both 
free  schools.  They  are,  in  fact,  more  free  in  New  York 
than  they  are  in  London ;  because  in  New  York  every  boy 
and  girl,  let  his  parentage  be  what  it  may,  can  attend  these 
schools  without  any  payment.  Thus  an  education  as  good 
as  the  American  mind  can  compass,  prepared  with  every 
care,  carried  on  by  highly-paid  tutors,  under  ample  surveil- 
lance, provided  with  all  that  is  most  excellent  in  the  way 
of  rooms,  desks,  books,  charts,  maps,  and  implements,  is 
brought  actually  within  the  reach  of  everybody.  I  need 
not  point  out  to  Englishmen  how  different  is  the  nature  of 
schools  in  London.  It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed 
that  these  are  charity  schools.  Such  is  not  their  nature. 
Let  us  say  what  we  may  as  to  the  beauty  of  charity  as  a 
virtue,  the  recipient  of  charity  in  its  customary  sense  among 
us  is  ever  more  or  less  degraded  by  the  position.  In  the 
States  that  has  been  fully  understood,  and  the  schools  to 
which  I  allude  are  carefully  preserved  from  any  such  taint. 
Throughout  the  States  a  separate  tax  is  levied  for  the  main- 
tenance of  these  schools,  and  as  the  taxpayer  supports 
them,  he  is,  of  course,  entitled  to  the  advantage  which  they 
confer.  The  child  of  the  non-taxpayer  is  also  entitled, 
and  to  him  the  boon,  if  strictly  analyzed,  will  come  in  the 
shape  of  a  charity.  But  under  the  system  as  it  is  arranged, 
this  is  not  analyzed.  It  is  understood  that  the  school  is 
open  to  all  in  the  ward  to  which  it  belongs,  and  no  inquiry 
is  made  whether  the  pupil's  parent  has  or  has  not  paid  any- 


NEW  YORK  FREE  SCHOOLS. 


227 


thing  toward  the  school's  support.  I  found  this  theory 
carried  out  so  far  that  at  the  deaf  and  dumb  school,  where 
some  of  the  poorer  children  are  wholly  provided  by  the 
institution,  care  is  taken  to  clotlie  them  in  dresses  of  differ- 
ent colors  and  different  make,  in  order  that  nothing  may 
attach  to  them  which  has  the  appearance  of  a  badge.  Polit- 
ical economists  will  see  something  of  evil  in  this.  But 
philanthropists  will  see  very  much  that  is  good. 

It  is  not  without  a  purpose  that  I  have  given  this  some- 
what glowing  account  of  a  girls'  school  in  New  York  so 
soon  after  my  little  picture  of  New  York  women,  as  they 
behave  themselves  in  the  streets  and  street  cars.  It  will, 
of  course,  be  said  that  those  women  of  whom  I  have  spoken, 
by  no  means  in  terms  of  admiration,  are  the  very  girls 
whose  education  has  been  so  excellent.  This  of  course  is 
so ;  but  I  beg  to  remark  that  I  have  by  no  means  said  that 
an  excellent  school  education  will  produce  all  female  ex- 
cellencies. The  fact,  I  take  it,  is  this :  that  seeing  how 
high  in  the  scale  these  girls  have  been  raised,  one  is  anxious 
that  they  should  be  raised  higher.  One  is  surprised  at 
their  pert  vulgarity  and  hideous  airs,  not  because  they  are 
so  low  in  our  general  estimation,  but  because  they  are  so 
high.  Women  of  the  same  class  in  London  are  humble 
enough,  and  therefore  rarely  offend  us  who  are  squeamish. 
They  show  by  their  gestures  that  they  hardly  think  them- 
selves good  enough  to  sit  by  us ;  they  apologize  for  their 
presence ;  they  conceive  it  to  be  their  duty  to  be  lowly  in 
their  gesture.  The  question  is  which  is  best,  the  crouching 
and  crawling,  or  the  impudent,  unattractive  self-composure. 
Not,-  my  reader,  which  action  on  her  part  may  the  better 
conduce  to  my  comfort  or  to  yours.  That  is  by  no  means 
the  question.  Which  is  the  better  for  the  woman  herself? 
That,  I  take  it,  is  the  point  to  be  decided.  That  there  is 
something  better  than  either,  we  shall  all  agree — but  to  my 
thinking  the  crouching  and  crawling  is  the  lowest  type  of 
all. 

At  that  school  I  saw  some  five  or  six  hundred  girls  col- 
lected in  one  room,  and  heard  them  sing.  The  singing  was 
very  pretty,  and  it  was  all  very  nice ;  but  I  own  that  I  was 
rather  startled,  and  to  tell  the  truth  somewhat  abashed, 
when  I  was  invited  to  "say  a  few  words  to  them."  No 
idea  of  such  a  suggestion  had  dawned  upon  me,  and  I  felt 
myself  quite  at  a  loss.    To  be  called  up  before  five  hundred 


228 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


men  is  bad  enough,  but  how  much  worse  before  that  num- 
ber of  girls !  What  could  I  say  but  that  they  were  all  very 
pretty?  As  far  as  I  can  remember,  I  did  say  that  and 
nothing  else.  Yery  pretty  they  were,  and  neatly  dressed, 
and  attractive ;  but  among  them  all  there  was  not  a  pair 
of  rosy  cheeks.  How  should  there  be,  when  every  room  in 
the  building  was  heated  up  to  the  condition  of  an  oven  by 
those  damnable  hot-air  pipes. 

In  England  a  taste  for  very  large  shops  has  come  up 
during  the  last  twenty  years.  A  firm  is  not  doing  a  good 
business,  or  at  any  rate  a  distinguished  business,  unless  he 
can  assert  in  his  trade  card  that  he  occupies  at  least  half  a 
dozen  houses— Nos.  105,  106,  101,  108,  109  and  110.  The 
old  way  of  paying  for  what  you  want  over  the  counter  is 
gone ;  and  when  you  buy  a  yard  of  tape  or  a  new  carriage — 
for  either  of  which  articles  you  will  probably  visit  the  same 
establishment — you  go  through  about  the  same  amount  of 
ceremony  as  when  you  sell  a  thousand  pounds  out  of  the 
stocks  in  propria  persona.  But  all  this  is  still  further  ex- 
aggerated in  New  York.  Mr.  Stewart's  store  there  is  per- 
haps the  handsomest  institution  in  the  city,  and  his  hall  of 
audience  for  new  carpets  is  a  magnificent  saloon.  "You 
have  nothing  like  that  in  England,"  my  friend  said  to  me 
as  he  walked  me  through  it  in  triumph.  "I  wish  we  had' 
nothing  approaching  to  it,"  I  answered.  For  I  confess  to 
a  liking  for  the  old-fashioned  private  shops.  Harper's 
establishment  for  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  books  is  also 
very  wonderful.  Everything  is  done  on  the  premises,  down 
to  the  very  coloring  of  the  paper  which  lines  the  covers,  and 
places  the  gilding  on  their  backs.  The  firm  prints,  engraves, 
electroplates,  sews,  binds,  publishes,  and  sells  wholesale  and 
retail.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  authors  have  rooms  in  the 
attics  where  the  other  slight  initiatory  step  is  taken  toward 
the  production  of  literature. 

New  York  is  built  upon  an  island,  which  is  I  believe 
about  ten  miles  long,  counting  from  the  southern  point  at 
the  Battery  up  to  Carmansville,  to  which  place  the  city  is 
presumed  to  extend  northward.  This  island  is  called  Man- 
hattan, a  name  which  I  have  always  thought  would  have  been 
more  graceful  for  the  city  than  that  of  New  York.  It  is 
formed  by  the  Sound  or  East  River,  which  divides  the  conti- 
nent from  Long  Island  by  the  Hudson  River,  which  runs  into 
the  Sound,  or  rather  joins  it  at  the  city  foot,  and  by  a  small 


NEW  YORK  STREETS. 


229 


stream  called  the  Harlem  River,  wliicli  runs  out  of  the  Hud- 
son and  meanders  away  into  the  Sound  at  the  north  of  the 
city,  thus  cutting  the  city  off  from  the  main-land.  The  breadth 
of  the  island  does  not  much  exceed  two  miles,  and  therefore 
the  city  is  long,  and  not  capable  of  extension  in  point  of 
breadth.  In  its  old  days  it  clustered  itself  round  about  the 
Point,  and  stretched  itself  up  from  there  along  the  quays 
of  the  two  waters.  The  streets  down  in  this  part  oi'  the 
town  are  devious  enough,  twisting  themselves  about  with 
delightful  irregularity;  but  as  the  city  grew  there  came  the 
taste  for  parallelograms,  and  the  upper  streets  are  rectangu- 
lar and  numbered.  Broadway,  the  street  of  New  York 
with  which  the  world  is  generally  best  acquainted,  begins  at 
the  southern  point  of  the  town  and  goes  northward  through 
it.  For  some  two  miles  and  a  half  it  w^alks  away  in  a 
straight  line,  and  then  it  turns  to  the  left  toward  the  Hudson. 
From  that  time  Broadway  never  again  takes  a  straight 
course,  but  crosses  the  various  avenues  in  an  oblique  direc- 
tion till  it  becomes  the  Bloomingdale  Road,  and  under  that 
name  takes  itself  out  of  town.  There  are  eleven  so-called 
avenues,  which  descend  in  absolutely  straight  lines  from 
the  northern,  and  at  present  unsettled,  extremity  of  the 
new  town,  making  their  way  southward  till  they  lose  them- 
selves among  the  old  streets.  These  are  called  First  Ave- 
nue, Second  Avenue,  and  so  on.  The  town  had  already 
i:)rogressed  two  miles  up  northward  from  the  Battery  before 
It  had  caught  the  parallelogramic  fever  from  Philadel- 
phia, for  at  about  that  distance  we  find  "  First  Street " 
First  Street  runs  across  the  avenues  from  water  to  water, 
and  then  Second  Street.  I  will  not  name  them  all,  seeing 
that  they  go  up  to  154th  Street !  They  do  so  at  least  on 
the  map,  and  I  believe  on  the  lamp-posts.  But  the  houses 
are  not  yet  built  in  order  beyond  50th  or  60th  Street.  The 
other  hundred  streets,  each  of  two  miles  long,  with  the 
avenues,  which  are  mostly  unoccupied  for  four  or  five  miles, 
is  the  ground  over  which  the  young  New  Yorkers  are  to 
spread  themselves.  I  do  not  in  the  least  doubt  that  they 
will  occupy  it  all,  .and  that  154th  Street  will  find  itself  too 
narro^v  a  boundary  for  the  population. 

I  have  said  that  there  was  some  good  architectural  effect 
in  New  York,  and  I  alluded  chiefly  to  that  of  tlie  Fifth 
Avenue.    The  Fifth  Avenue  is  the  Belgrave  Square,  the 

20 


230 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Park  Lane,  and  the  Pall  Mall  of  New  York.  It  is  cer- 
tainly a  very  fine  street.  The  houses  in  it  are  magniQcent 
— not  having  that  aristocratic  look  which  some  of  our  de- 
tached London  residences  enjoy,  or  the  palatial  appearance 
of  an  old-fashioned  hotel  in  Paris,  but  an  air  of  comforta- 
ble luxury  and  commercial  wealth  which  is  not  excelled  by 
the  best  houses  of  any  other  town  that  I  know.  They  are 
houses,  not  hotels  or  palaces ;  but  they  are  very  roomy 
houses,  with  every  luxury  that  complete  finish  can  give 
them.  Many  of  them  cover  large  spaces  of  the  ground, 
and  their  rent  will  sometimes  go  up  as  high  as  £800  and 
£1000  a  year.  Generally  the  best  of  these  houses  are 
owned  by  those  who  live  in  them,  and  rent  is  not,  therefore, 
paid.  But  this  is  not  always  the  case,  and  the  suras  named 
above  may  be  taken  as  expressing  their  value.  In  England 
a  man  should  have  a  very  large  income  indeed  who  could 
afford  to  pay  £1000  a  year  for  his  house  in  London.  Such 
a  one  would  as  a  matter  of  course  have  an  establishment  in 
the  country,  and  be  an  earl,  or  a  duke,  or  a  millionaire. 
But  it  is  different  in  New  York.  The  resident  there  shows 
his  wealth  chiefly  by  his  house ;  and  though  he  may  proba- 
bly have  a  villa  at  Newport  or  a  box  somewhere  up  the 
Hudson,  he  has  no  second  establishment.  Such  a  house, 
therefore,  will  not  represent  a  total  expenditure  of  above 
£4000  a  year. 

There  are  churches  on  each  side  of  Fifth  Avenue — per- 
haps five  or  six  witiiin  sight  at  one  time — which  add  much 
to  the  beauty  of  the  street.  They  are  well  built,  and  in 
fairly  good  taste.  These,  added  to  the  general  well-being 
and  splendid  comfort  of  the  place,  give  it  an  effect  better 
than  the  architecture  of  the  individual  houses  would  seem 
to  warrant.  I  own  that  I  have  enjoyed  the  vista  as  I  have 
walked  up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue,  and  have  felt  that  the 
city  had  a  right  to  be  proud  of  its  wealth.  But  the  great- 
ness and  beauty  and  glory  of  wealth  have  on  such  occasions 
been  all  in  all  with  me.  I  know  no  great  man,  no  celebrated 
statesman,  no  philanthropist  of  peculiar  note  who  has  lived 
in  Fifth  Avenue.  That  gentleman  on  the  right  made  a  mil- 
lion of  dollars  by  inventing  a  shirt  collar;  this  one  an  the 
left  electrified  the  world  by  a  lotion  ;  as  to  the  gentleman 
at  the  corner  there,  there  are  rumors  about  him  and  the 
Cuban  slave  trade ;  but  my  informant  by  no  means  knows 


SUBURBS  OF  NEW  YORK. 


231 


thv^t  tliey  arc  true.  Sucli  arc  the  aristocracy  of  Fifth  Ave- 
nue. I  can  only  say  that,  if  I  could  make  a  million  dollars 
by  a  lotion,  I  should  certainly  be  right  to  live  in  such  a 
house  as  one  of  those. 
/  The  suburbs  of  New  York  are,  by  the  nature  of  the  local- 
ities, divided  from  the  city  by  water.  Jersey  City  and  II o- 
boken  are  on  the  other  side  of  the  Hudson,  and  in  another 
State.  Williamsburg  and  Brooklyn  are  on  Long  Island, 
which  is  a  part  of  the  State  of  New  York.  But  these  places 
are  as  easily  reached  as  Lambeth  is  reached  from  Westmin- 
ster. Steam  ferries  ply  every  three  or  four  minutes  ;  and 
into  these  boats  coaches,  carts,  and  wagons  of  any  size 
or  weight  are  driven.  In  fact,  they  make  no  other  stoppage 
to  the  commerce  than  that  occasioned  by  the  payment  of  a 
few  cents.  Such  payment,  no  doubt,  is  a  stoppage  ;  and 
therefore  it  is  that  Jersey  City,  Brooklyn,  and  Williamsburg 
are,  at  any  rate  in  appearance,  very  dull  and  uninviting. 
They  are,  however,  very  populous.  Many  of  the  quieter 
citizens  prefer  to  live  there  ;  and  I  am  told  that  the  Brook- 
lyn tea  parties  consider  themselves  to  be,  in  esthetic  feeling, 
very  much  ahead  of  anything  of  the  kind  in  the  more  opu- 
lent centers  of  the  city.  In  beauty  of  scenery  Staten  Island 
is  very  much  the  prettiest  of  the  suburbs  of  New  York. 
The  view  from  the  hillside  in  Staten  Island  down  upon 
New  York  harbor  is  very  lovely.  It  is  the  only  really 
good  view  of  that  magnificent  harbor  which  I  have  been 
able  to  find.  As  for  appreciating  such  beauty  when  one  is 
entering  a  port  from  sea  or  leaving  it  for  sea,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve in  any  such  power.  The  ship  creeps  up  or  creeps  out 
while  the  mind  is  engaged  on  other  matters.  The  passen- 
ger is  uneasy  either  with  hopes  or  fears,  and  then  the  grease 
of  the  engines  otfends  one's  nostrils.  But  it  is  worth  the 
tourist's  while  to  look  down  upon  New  York  harbor  from 
the  hillside  in  Staten  Island.  When  I  was  there  Fort  La- 
fayette looked  black  in  the  center  of  the  channel,  and  we 
knew  that  it  was  crowded  with  the  victims  of  secession. 
Fort  Tompkins  was  being  built  to  guard  the  pass — worthy 
of  a  name  of  richer  sound  ;  and  Fort  something  else  was 
bristling  with  new  cannon.  Fort  Hamilton,  on  Long  Isl- 
and, opposite,  was  frowning  at  us;  and  immediately  around 
us  a  regiment  of  volunteers  was  receiving  regimental  stocks 
and  boots  from  the  hands  of  its  officers.  Everything  was 
bristling  with  war;  and  one  could  not  but  think  that  not  in 


232 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


this  way  had  New  York  raised  herself  so  quickly  to  her 
present  greatness. 

But  the  glory  of  New  York  is  the  Central  Park — its  glory 
in  the  minds  of  all  New  Yorkers  of  the  present  day.  The 
first  question  asked  of  you  is  whether  you  have  seen  the 
Central  Park,  and  the  second  is  as  to  what  you  think  of  it. 
It  does  not  do  to  say  simply  that  it  is  fine,  grand,  beautiful, 
and  miraculous.  You  must  swear  by  cock  and  pie  that  it 
is  more  fine,  more  grand,  more  beautiful,  more  miraculous 
than  anything  else  of  the  kind  anywhere.  Here  you  en- 
counter in  its  most  annoying  form  that  necessity  for  eulo- 
gium  which  presses  you  everywhere.  For  in  truth,  taken 
as  it  is  at  present,  the  Central  Park  is  not  fine,  nor  grand, 
nor  beautiful  As  to  the  miracle,  let  that  pass.  It  is  per- 
haps as  miraculous  as  some  other  great  latter-day  miracles. 

But  the  Central  Park  is  a  very  great  fact,  and  affords  a 
strong  additional  proof  of  the  sense  and  energy  of  the  peo- 
ple. It  is  very  large,  being  over  three  miles  long  and  about 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  in  breadth.  When  it  was  found 
that  New  York  was  extending  itself,  and  becoming  one  of 
the  largest  cities  of  the  world,  a  space  was  selected  between 
Fifth  and  Seventh  Avenues,  immediately  outside  the  limits 
of  the  city  as  then  built,  but  nearly  in  the  center  of  the  city 
as  it  is  intended  to  be  built.  The  ground  around  it  became 
at  once  of  great  value  ;  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  pres- 
ent fashion  of  Fifth  Avenue  about  Twentieth  Street  will  in 
course  of  time  move  itself  up  to  Fifth  Avenue  as  it  looks, 
or  will  look,  over  the  Park  at  Seventieth,  Eightieth,  and 
Ninetieth  Streets.  The  great  water- works  of  the  city  bring 
the  Croton  Biver,  whence  New  York  is  supplied,  by  an 
aqueduct  over  the  Harlem  Biver  into  an  enormous  reservoir 
just  above  the  Park  ;  and  hence  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
there  will  be  water  not  only  for  sanitary  and  useful  purposes, 
but  also  for  ornament.  At  present  the  Park,  to  English 
eyes,  seems  to  be  all  road.  The  trees  are  not  grown  up ; 
and  the  new  embankments,  and  new  lakes,  and  new  ditches, 
and  new  paths  give  to  the  place  anything  but  a  picturesque 
appearance.  The  Central  Park  is  good  for  what  it  will  be 
rather  than  for  what  it  is.  The  summer  heat  is  so  very 
great  that  I  doubt  much  whether  the  people  of  New  York 
will  ever  enjoy  such  verdure  as  our  parks  show.  But  there 
will  be  a  pleasant  assemblage  of  walks  and  water-works, 
with  fresh  air  and  fine  shrubs  and  flowers,  immediately 


RAILWAYS  IN  NEW  YORK. 


233 


within  the  reach  of  the  citizens.  All  that  art  and  encrjry 
can  do  will  be  done,  and  the  Central  Park  doubtless  will 
become  one  of  the  great  glories  of  New  York.  When  I 
was  expected  to  declare  that  St.  James's  Park,  Green  l*ark, 
Hyde  Park,  and  Kensington  Gardens  altogether  were  nothing 
to  it,  I  confess  that  I  could  only  remain  mute. 

Those  who  desire  to  learn  what  are  the  secrets  of  society 
in  New  York,  I  would  refer  to  the  Potiphar  Papers.  The 
Potiphar  Papers  are  perhaps  not  as  well  known  in  England 
as  they  deserve  to  be.  They  were  published,  I  think,  as 
much  as  seven  or  eight  years  ago  ;  but  are  probably  as 
true  now  as  they  were  then.  What  I  saw  of  society  in  New 
York  was  quiet  and  pleasant  enough ;  but  doubtless  I  did 
not  climb  into  that  circle  in  which  Mrs.  Potiphar  held  so 
xlistinguished  a  position.  It  may  be  true  that  gentlemen 
habitually  throw  fragments  of  their  supper  and  remnants  of 
their  wine  on  to  their  host's  carpets ;  but  if  so  I  did  not 
see  it. 

As  I  progress  in  my  work  I  feel  that  duty  will  call  upon 
me  to  write  a  separate  chapter  on  hotels  in  general,  and 
I  will  not,  therefore,  here  say  much  about  those  in  New 
York.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  few  towns  in  the  world, 
if  any,  afford  on  the  whole  better  accommodation,  but  there 
are  many  in  which  the  accommodation  is  cheaper.  Of  the 
railways  also  I  ought  to  say  something.  The  fact  respect- 
ing them,  which  is  most  remarkable,  is  that  of  their  being 
continued  into  the  center  of  the  town  through  the  streets. 
The  cars  are  not  dragged  through  the  city  by  locomotive 
engines,  but  by  horses ;  the  pace  therefore  is  slow,  but  the 
convenience  to  travelers  in  being  brought  nearer  to  the 
center  of  trade  must  be  much  felt.  It  is  as  though  pas- 
sengers from  Liverpool  and  passengers  from  Bristol  were 
carried  on  from  Euston  Square  and  Paddington  along  the 
New  Road,  Portland  Place,  and  Regent  Street  to  Pall 
Mall,  or  up  the  City  Road  to  the  Bank.  As  a  general  rule, 
however,  the  railways,  railway  cars,  and  all  about  them  are 
ill  managed.  They  are  monopolies,  and  the  public,  through 
the  press,  has  no  restraining  power  upon  them  as  it  has  in 
England.  A  parcel  sent  by  express  over  a  distance  ot  forty 
miies  will  not  be  delivered  within  twenty-four  hours.  I 
once  made  my  plaint  on  this  subject  at  the  bar  or  office  of 
a  hotel,  and  was  told  that  no  remonstrance  was  of  avail. 
*'  It  is  a  monopoly,"  the  man  told  me,  "  and  if  we  say  any- 

20* 


234 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


thing,  we  are  told  that  if  wc  do  not  like  it  we  need  not  use 
it."  In  railway  matters  and  postal  matters  time  and  punc- 
tuality are  not  valued  in  the  States  as  they  are  with  us,  and 
the  public  seem  to  acknowledge  that  they  must  put  up  with 
defects — that  they  must  grin  and  bear  them  in  America,  as 
the  public  no  doubt  do  in  Austria,  where  such  affairs  are 
managed  by  a  government  bureau. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  I  spoke  of  the  population 
of  New  York,  and  I  cannot  end  it  without  remarking  that 
out  of  that  population  more  than  one-eighth  is  composed  of 
Germans.  It  is,  I  believe,  computed  that  there  are  about 
120,000  Germans  in  the  city,  and  that  only  two  other  Ger- 
man cities  in  the  world,  Vienna  and  Berlin,  have  a  larger 
German  population  than  New  York.  The  Germans  are 
good  citizens  and  thriving  men,  and  are  to  be  found  pros- 
pering all  over  the  Northern  and  Western  parts  of  the 
Union.  It  seems  that  they  are  excellently  well  adapted  to 
colonization,  though  they  have  in  no  instance  become  the 
dominant  people  in  a  colony,  or  carried  with  them  their 
own  language  or  their  own  laws.  The  French  have  done  so 
in  Algeria,  in  some  of  the  West  India  islands,  and  quite  as 
essentially  into  Lower  Canada,  where  their  language  and 
laws  still  prevail.  And  yet  it  is,  I  think,  beyond  doubt 
that  the  French  are  not  good  colonists,  as  are  the  Germans. 

Of  the  ultimate  destiny  of  New  York  as  one  of  the  ruling 
commercial  cities  of  the  world,  it  is,  I  think,  impossible  to 
doubt.  Whether  or  no  it  will  ever  equal  London  in  popula- 
tion I  will  not  pretend  to  say ;  even  should  it  do  so,  should 
its  numbers  so  increase  as  to  enable  it  to  say  that  it  had 
done  so,  the  question  could  not  very  well  be  settled.  When 
it  comes  to  pass  that  an  assemblage  of  men  in  one  so-called 
city  have  to  be  counted  by  millions,  there  arises  the  impos- 
sibility of  defining  the  limits  of  that  city,  and  of  saying  who 
belong  to  it  and  who  do  not.  An  arbitrary  line  may  be 
drawn,  but  that  arbitrary  line,  though  perhaps  false  when 
drawn  as  including  too  much,  soon  becomes  more  false  as 
including  too  little.  Ealing,  Acton,  Fulham,  Putney,  Nor- 
wood, Sydenham,  Blackheath,  Woolwich,  Greenwich,  Strat- 
ford, Highgate,  and  Hampstead  are,  in  truth,  component 
parts  of  London,  and  very  shortly  Brighton  will  be  as 
much  so. 


NEW  YORK  STATE  CONSTITUTION, 


235 


CHAPTER  XY. 

THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  STATE  OP  NEW  YORK. 

As  New  York  is  the  most  populous  State  of  the  Union, 
having  the  largest  representation  in  Congress — on  which 
account  it  has  been  called  the  Empire  State — I  propose  to 
state,  as  shortly  as  may  be,  the  nature  of  its  separate  con- 
stitution as  a  State.  Of  course  it  will  be  understood  that 
the  constitutions  of  the  different  States  are  by  no  means  the 
same.  They  have  been  arranged  according  to  the  judgment 
of  the  different  people  concerned,  and  have  been  altered 
from  time  to  time  to  suit  such  altered  judgment.  But  as 
the  States  together  form  one  nation,  and  on  such  matters  as 
foreign  affairs,  war,  customs,  and  post-office  regulations,  are 
bound  together  as  much  as  are  the  English  counties,  it  is, 
of  course,  necessary  that  the  constitution  of  each  should  in 
most  matters  assimilate  itself  to  those  of  the  others.  These 
constitutions  are  very  much  alike.  A  Governor,  with  two 
houses  of  legislature,  generally  called  the  Senate  and  the 
House  of  Representatives,  exists  in  each  State.  In  the 
State  of  New  York  the  Lower  House  is  called  the  Assembly. 
In  most  States  the  Governor  is  elected  annually;  but  in 
some  States  for  two  years,  as  in  New  York.  In  Pennsyl- 
vania he  is  elected  for  three  years.  The  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives or  the  Assembly  is,  I  think,  always  elected  for  one 
session  only ;  but  as  in  many  of  the  States  the  legislature 
only  sits  once  in  two  years,  the  election  recurs  of  course  at 
the  same  interval.  The  franchise  in  all  the  States  is  nearly 
universal,  but  in  no  State  is  it  perfectly  so.  The  Governor, 
Lieutenant-Governor,  and  other  officers  are  elected  by  vote 
of  the  people,  as  well  as  the  members  of  the  legislature.  Of 
course  it  will  be  understood  that  each  State  makes  laws  for 
itself — that  they  are  in  nowise  dependent  on  the  Congress 
assembled  at  Washington  for  their  laws — unless  for  laws 
which  refer  to  matters  betw^een  the  United  States  as  a  na- 
tion and  other  nations,  or  between  one  State  and  another. 
Each  State  declares  with  what  punishment  crimes  shall  be 


236 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


visited  ;  what  taxes  shall  be  levied  for  the  use  of  the  State  ; 
what  laws  shall  be  passed  as  to  education  ;  what  shall  be 
the  State  judiciary.  With  reference  to  the  judiciary,  how- 
ever, it  must  be  understood  tliat  the  United  States  as  a  na- 
tion have  separate  national  law  courts,  before  which  come 
all  cases  litigated  between  State  and  State,  and  all  cases 
which  do  not  belong  in  every  respect  to  any  one  individual 
State.  In  a  subsequent  chapter  I  will  endeavor  to  explain 
this  more  fully.  In  endeavoring  to  understand  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  it  is  essentially  necessary  that  we 
should  remember  that  we  have  always  to  deal  with  two  dif- 
ferent political  arrangements — that  which  refers  to  the  na- 
tion as  a  whole,  and  that  which  belongs  to  each  State  as  a 
separate  governing  power  in  itself.  What  is  law  in  one 
State  is  not  law  in  another,  nevertheless  there  is  a  very  great 
likeness  throughout  these  various  constitutions,  and  any  po- 
litical student  who  shall  have  thoroughly  mastered  one,  will 
not  have  much  to  learn  in  mastering  the  others. 

This  State,  now  called  New  York,  was  first  settled  by  the 
Dutch  in  1614,  on  Manhattan  Island.  They  established  a 
government  in  1629,  under  the  name  of  the  New  Nether- 
lands. In  1664  Charles  II.  granted  the  province  to  his 
brother,  James  II.,  then  Duke  of  York,  and  possession  was 
taken  of  the  country  on  his  behalf  by  one  Colonel  Ni(;hols. 
In  1673  it  was  recaptured  by  the  Dutch,  but  they  could 
not  hold  it,  and  the  Duke  of  York  again  took  possession 
by  patent.  A  legislative  body  was  first  assembled  during 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  in  1683;  from  which  it  will  be 
seen  that  parliamentary  representation  was  introduced  into 
the  American  colonies  at  a  very  early  date.  The  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  was  made  by  the  revolted  colonies  in 
ltt6,  and  in  1777  the  first  constitution  was  adopted  by  the 
State  of  New  York.  In  1822  this  was  changed  for  another; 
and  the  one  of  which  I  now  purport  to  state  some  of  the  de- 
tails was  brought  into  action  in  1847.  In  this  constitution 
there  is  a  provision  that  it  shall  be  overhauled  and  remod- 
eled, if  needs  be,  once  in  twenty  years.  Article  XIII. 
Sec.  2.  "At  the  general  election  to  be  held  in  1866,  and  in 
each  twentieth  year  thereafter,  the  question,  '  Shall  there 
be  a  convention  to  revise  the  constitution  and  amend  the 
same?'  shall  be  decided  by  the  electors  qualified  to  vote 
for  members  of  the  legislature."   So  that  the  Nevf  Yorkers 


NEW  YORK  STATE  CONSTITUTION. 


231 


cannot  be  twitted  with  the  presumption  of  finality  in  refer- 
ence to  their  legislative  arrangements. 

The  present  constitution  begins  with  declaring  the  in- 
violability of  trial  by  jury,  and  of  habeas  corpus — "unless 
when,  in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety 
may  require  its  suspension."  It  does  not  say  by  whom  it 
may  be  suspended,  or  who  is  to  judge  of  the  public  safety, 
but,  at  any  rate,  it  may  be  presumed  that  such  suspension 
was  supposed  to  come  from  the  powers  of  the  State  which 
enacted  the  law.  At  the  present  moment,  the  habeas  cor- 
pus is  suspended  in  New  York,  and  this  suspension  has 
proceeded  not  from  the  powers  of  the  State,  but  from  the 
Federal  government,  without  the  sanction  even  of  the 
Federal  Congress, 

"Every  citizen  may  freely  speak,  write,  and  publish  his 
sentiments  on  all  subjects,  being  responsible  for  the  abuse 
of  that  right;  and  no  law  shall  be  passed  to  restrain  or 
abridge  the  liberty  of  speech  or  of  the  press."  Art.  I. 
Sec.  8.  But  at  the  present  moment  liberty  of  speech  and 
of  the  press  is  utterly  abrogated  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
as  it  is  in  other  States.  I  mention  this  not  as  a  reproach 
against  either  the  State  or  the  Federal  government,  but  to 
show  how  vain  all  laws  are  for  the  protection  of  such  rights. 
If  they  be  not  protected  by  the  feelings  of  the  people — if 
the  people  are  at  any  time,  or  from  any  cause,  willing  to 
abandon  such  privileges,  no  written  laws  will  preserve  them. 

In  Article  I.  Sec.  14,  there  is  a  proviso  that  no  land — ■ 
land,  that  is,  used  for  agricultural  purposes — shall  be  let  on 
lease  for  a  longer  period  than  twelve  years.  "  No  lease  or 
grant  of  agricultural  land  for  a  longer  period  than  twelve 
years  hereafter  made,  in  which  shall  be  reserved  any  rent 
or  service  of  any  kind,  shall  be  valid."  I  do  not  under- 
stand the  intended  virtue  of  this  proviso,  but  it  shows  very 
clearly  how  different  are  the  practices  with  reference  to  land 
in  England  and  America.  Farmers  in  the  States  almost 
always  are  the  owners  of  the  land  which  they  farm,  and 
such  tenures  as  those  by  which  the  occupiers  of  land  gen- 
erally hold  their  farms  with  us  are  almost  unknown.  There 
is  no  such  relation  as  that  of  landlord  and  tenant  as  re- 
gards agricultural  holdings. 

Every  male  citizen  of  New  York  may  vote  who  is  twenty- 
one,  who  has  been  a  citizen  for  ten  days,  who  has  lived  in 
the  State  for  a  year,  and  for  four  months  in  the  county  in 


233 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


which  he  votes.  He  can  vote  for  all  "officers  that  now  are, 
or  hereafter  may  be,  elective  by  the  people."  Art.  II.  Sec. 
1.  "But,"  the  section  goes  on  to  say,  "no  man  of  color, 
nnless  he  shall  have  been  for  three  years  a  citizen  of  the 
State,  and  for  one  year  next  preceding  any  election  shall 
have  been  possessed  of  a  freehold  estate  of  the  value  of 
250  dollars,  (50/.,)  and  shall  have  been  actually  rated,  and 
paid  a  tax  thereon,  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  at  such  elec- 
tion." This  is  the  only  embargo  with  which  universal  suf- 
frage is  laden  in  the  State  of  New  York. 

The  third  article  provides  for  the  election  of  the  Senate 
and  the  Assembly.  The  Senate  consists  of  thirty-two 
members.  And  it  may  here  be  remarked  that  large  as  is 
the  State  of  New  York,  and  great  as  is  its  population,  its 
Senate  is  less  numerous  than  that  of  many  other  States. 
In  Massachusetts,  for  instance,  there  are  forty  Senators, 
though  the  population  of  Massachusetts  is  barely  one-third 
that  of  New  York.  In  Virginia,  there  are  fifty  Senators, 
whereas  the  free  population  is  not  one-third  of  that  of  New 
York.  As  a  consequence,  the  Senate  of  New  York  is  said 
to  be  filled  with  men  of  a  higher  class  than  are  generally 
found  in  the  Senates  of  other  States.  Then  follows  in  the 
article  a  list  of  the  districts  which  are  to  return  the  Sena- 
tors. These  districts  consist  of  one,  two,  three,  or  in  one 
case  four  counties,  according  to  the  population. 

The  article  does  not  give  the  number  of  members  of  the 
Lower  House,  nor  does  it  even  state  what  amount  of  popula- 
tion shall  be  held  as  entitled  to  a  member.  It  merely  pro- 
vides for  the  division  of  the  State  into  districts  which  shall 
contain  an  equal  number,  not  of  population,  but  of  voters. 
The  House  of  Assembly  does  consist  of  128  members. 

It  is  then  stipulated  that  every  member  of  both  houses 
shall  receive  three  dollars  a  day,  or  twelve  shillings,  for 
their  services  during  the  sitting  of  the  legislature ;  but  this 
sum  is  never  to  exceed  300  dollars,  or  sixty  pounds,  in  one 
year,  unless  an  extra  session  be  called.  There  is  also  an 
allowance  for  the  traveling  expenses  of  members.  It  is,  I 
presume,  generally  known  that  the  members  of  the  Congress 
at  Washington  are  all  paid,  and  that  the  same  is  the  caso 
with  reference  to  the  legislatures  of  all  the  States. 

No  member  of  the  New  York  legislature  can  also  be  a 
member  of  the  Washington  Congress,  or  hold  any  civil  or 
military  office  under  the  General  States  government. 


NEW  YORK  STATE  CONSTITUTION. 


239 


A  majority  of  each  House  must  be  present,  or,  as  the 
article  says,  "shall  constitute  a  quorum  to  do  business." 
Each  House  is  to  keep  a  journal  of  its  proceedings.  The 
doors  are  to  be  open — except  when  the  public  welfare  shall 
require  secrecy.  A  singular  proviso  this  in  a  country  boast- 
ing so  much  of  freedom  !  For  no  speech  or  debate  in  either 
House,  shall  the  legislator  be  called  in  question  in  any 
other  place.  The  legislature  assembles  on  the  first  Tuesday 
in  January,  and  sits  for  about  three  months.  Its  seat  is  at 
Albany. 

The  executive  power,  Article  lY.,  is  to  be  vested  in  a 
Governor  and  a  Lieutenant-Governor,  both  of  whom  shall 
be  chosen  for  two  years.  The  Governor  must  be  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  must  be  thirty  years  of  age,  and  have 
lived  for  the  last  four  years  in  the  State.  He  is  to  be  com- 
mander-in-chief  of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  State, 
as  is  the  President  of  those  of  the  Union.  I  see  that  this  is 
also  the  case  in  inland  States,  which  one  would  say  can  have 
no  navies.  And  with  reference  to  some  States  it  is  enacted 
that  the  Governor  is  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  navy, 
and  militia,  showing  that  some  army  over  and  beyond  the 
militia  may  be  kept  by  the  State.  In  Tennessee,  which  is 
an  inland  State,  it  is  enacted  that  the  Governor  shall  be 
"commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  this  State, 
and  of  the  militia,  except  when  they  shall  be  called  into  the 
service  of  the  United  States."  In  Ohio  the  same  is  the 
case,  except  that  there  is  no  mention  of  militia.  In  New 
York  there  is  no  proviso  with  reference  to  the  service  of 
the  United  States.  I  mention  this  as  it  bears  with  some 
strength  on  the  question  of  the  right  of  secession,  and  indi- 
cates the  jealousy  of  the  individual  States  with  reference  to 
the. Federal  government.  The  Governor  can  convene  extra 
sessions  of  one  House  or  of  both.  He  makes  a  message  to  the 
legislature  when  it  meets — a  sort  of  Queen's  speech  ;  and 
he  receives  for  his  services  a  compensation  to  be  established 
by  law.  In  New  York  this  amounts  to  800/.  a  year.  In 
some  States  this  is  as  low  as  200/.  and  300/.  In  Virginia 
it  is  1000/.    In  California,  1200/. 

The  Governor  can  pardon,  except  in  cases  of  treason. 
He  has  also  a  veto  upon  all  bills  sent  up  by  the  legislature. 
If  he  exercise  this  veto  he  returns  the  bill  to  the  legislature 
with  his  reasons  for  so  doing.  If  the  bill  on  reconsideration 
by  the  Houses  be  again  passed  by  a  majority  of  two-thirds 


210 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


in  each  House,  it  becomes  law  in  spite  of  the  Governor's 
veto.  The  veto  of  the  President  at  Washington  is  of  the 
same  nature.  Such  are  the  powers  of  the  Governor.  But 
though  they  are  very  full,  the  Governor  of  each  State  does 
not  practically  exercise  any  great  political  power,  nor  is  he, 
even  politically,  a  great  man.  You  might  live  in  a  State 
during  the  whole  term  of  his  government  and  hardly  hear 
of  him.  There  is  vested  in  him  by  the  language  of  the  con- 
stitution a  much  wider  power  than  that  intrusted  to  the 
governor  of  our  colonies.  But  in  our  colonies  everybody 
talks,  and  thinks,  and  knows  about  the  governor.  As  far 
as  the  limits  of  the  colony  the  governor  is  a  great  man. 
But  this  is  not  the  case  with  reference  to  the  governors  in 
the  different  States. 

The  next  article  provides  that  the  Governor's  ministers, 
viz.,  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Controller,  Treasurer,  and 
Attorney-General,  shall  be  chosen  every  two  years  at  a  gen- 
eral election.  In  this  respect  the  State  constitution  differs 
from  that  of  the  national  constitution.  The  President  at 
"Washington  names  his  own  ministers — subject  to  the  appro- 
bation of  the  Senate.  He  makes  many  other  appointments 
with  the  same  limitation,  and  the  Senate,  I  believe,  is  not 
slow  to  interfere ;  but  with  reference  to  the  ministers  it  is 
understood  that  the  names  sent  in  by  the  President  shall 
stand.  Of  the  Secretary  of  State,  Controller,  etc.,  belong- 
ing to  the  different  States,  and  who  are  elected  by  the 
people,  in  a  general  way,  one  never  hears.  No  doubt  they 
attend  their  offices  and  take  their  pay,  but  they  are  not 
political  personages. 

The  next  article,  No.  YL,  refers  to  the  judiciary,  and  is 
very  complicated.  As  I  cannot  understand  it,  I  will  not 
attempt  to  explain  it.  Moreover,  it  is  not  within  the  scope 
of  my  ambition  to  convey  here  all  the  details  of  the  State 
constitution.  In  Sec.  20  of  this  article  it  is  provided  that 
''no  judicial  officer,  except  justices  of  the  peace,  shall  re- 
ceive to  his  own  use  any  fees  or  perquisites  of  office."  How 
pleasantly  this  enactment  must  sound  in  the  ears  of  the 
justices  of  the  peace  ! 

Article  YII.  refers  to  fiscal  matters,  and  is  more  especially 
interesting  as  showing  how  greatly  the  State  of  New  York 
has  depended  on  its  canals  for  its  wealth.  These  canals  are 
the  property  of  the  State  ;  and  by  this  article  it  seems  to  be 
provided  that  they  shall  not  only  maintain  themselves,  but 


NEW  YORK  STATE  CONSTITUTION. 


241 


maintain  to  a  considerable  extent  the  State  expenditure 
also,  and  stand  in  lieu  of  taxation.  It  is  provided,  Section 
G,  that  the  "  legislature  shall  not  sell,  lease,  or  otherwise 
dispose  of  any  of  the  canals  of  the  State  ;  but  that  they 
shall  remain  the  property  of  the  State,  and  under  its  man- 
agement forever."  But  in  spite  of  its  canals  the  State  does 
not  seem  to  be  doing  very  well,  for  I  see  that,  in  1860,  its 
income  was  4,780,000  dollars,  and  its  expenditure  5,100,000, 
whereas  its  debt  was  32,500,000  dollars.  Of  all  the  States, 
Pennsylvania  is  the  most  indebted,  Yirginia  the  second,  and 
New  York  the  third.  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut,  Ver- 
mont, Delaware,  and  Texas  owe  no  State  debts.  All  the 
other  State  ships  have  taken  in  ballast. 

The  militia  is  supposed  to  consist  of  all  men  capable  of 
bearing  arms,  under  forty-five  years  of  age.  But  no  one 
need  be  enrolled,  who  from  scruples  of  conscience  is  averse 
to  bearing  arms.  At  the  present  moment  such  scruples  do 
not  seem  to  be  very  general.  Then  follows,  in  Article  XI., 
a  detailed  enactment  as  to  the  choosing  of  militia  officers. 
It  may  be  perhaps  sufficient  to  say  that  the  privates  are  to 
choose  the  captains  and  the  subalterns;  the  captains  and 
subalterns  are  to  choose  the  field  officers  ;  and  the  field 
officers  the  brigadier-generals  and  inspectors  of  brigade. 
The  Governor,  however,  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate,  shall 
nominate  all  major-generals.  Now  that  real  soldiers  have 
unfortunately  become  necessary,  the  above  plan  has  not  been 
found  to  work  well. 

Such  is  the  constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York,  which 
has  been  intended  to  work  and  does  work  quite  separately 
from  that  of  the  United  States.  It  will  be  seen  that  the 
purport  has  been  to  make  it  as  widely  democratic  as  possi- 
ble— to  provide  that  all  power  of  all  description  shall  come 
directly  from  the  people,  and  that  such  power  shall  return 
to  the  people  at  short  intervals.  The  Senate  and  the  Gov- 
ernor each  remain  for  two  years,  but  not  for  the  same  two 
years.  If  a  new  Senate  commence  its  work  in  1861,  a  new 
Governor  will  come  in  in  1862.  But,  nevertheless,  there  is  in 
the  form  of  government  as  thus  established  an  absence  of 
that  close  and  immediate  responsibility  which  attends  our 
ministers.  When  a  man  has  been  voted  in,  it  seems  that 
responsibility  is  over  for  the  period  of  the  required  service. 
He  has  been  chosen,  and  the  country  which  has  chosen  him 

21 


242 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


is  to  trust  that  he  will  do  his  best.  I  do  not  know  that  this 
matters  much  with  reference  to  the  legislature  or  govern- 
ments of  the  different  States,  for  their  State  legislatures  and 
governments  are  but  puny  powers ;  but  in  the  legislature 
and  government  at  Washington  it  does  matter  very  much. 
But  I  shall  have  another  opportunity  of  speaking  on  that 
subject. 

Nothing  has  struck  me  so  much  in  America  as  the  fact 
that  these  State  legislatures  are  puny  powers.  The  absence 
of  any  tidings  whatever  of  their  doings  across  the  water  is 
a  proof  of  this.  Who  has  heard  of  the  legislature  of  New 
York  or  of  Massachusetts  ?  It  is  boasted  here  that  their 
insignificance  is  a  sign  of  the  well-being  of  the  people ; 
that  the  smallness  of  the  power  necessary  for  carrying  on 
the  machine  shows  how  beautifully  the  machine  is  organized, 
and  how  well  it  works.  "  It  is  better  to  have  little  gov- 
ernors than  great  governors,"  an  American  said  to  me  once. 
"  It  is  our  glory  that  we  know  how  to  live  without  having 
great  men  over  us  to  rule  us."  That  glory,  if  ever  it  were 
a  glory,  has  come  to  an  end.  It  seems  to  me  that  all  these 
troubles  have  come  upon  the  States  because  they  have  not 
placed  high  men  in  high  places.  The  less  of  laws  and  the  less 
of  control  the  better,  providing  a  people  can  go  right  with 
few  laws  and  little  control.  One  may  say  that  no  laws  and 
no  control  would  be  best  of  all — provided  that  none  were 
needed.  But  this  is  not  exactly  the  position  of  the  American 
people. 

The  two  professions  of  law-making  and  of  governing 
have  become  unfashionable,  low  in  estimation,  and  of  no 
repute  in  the  States.  The  municipal  powers  of  the  cities 
have  not  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  leading  men.  The 
word  politician  has  come  to  bear  the  meaning  of  political 
adventurer  and  almost  of  political  blackleg.  If  A  calls  B 
a  politician,  A  intends  to  vilify  B  by  so  calling  him.  Whether 
or  DO  the  best  citizens  of  a  State  will  ever  be  induced  to 
serve  in  the  State  legislature  by  a  nobler  consideration  than 
that  of  pay,  or  by  a  higher  tone  of  political  morals  than 
that  now  existing,  I  cannot  say.  It  seems  to  me  that  some 
great  decrease  in  the  numbers  of  the  State  legislators  should 
be  a  first  step  toward  such  a  consummation.  There  are  not 
many  men  in  each  State  who  can  afford  to  give  up  two  or 
three  months  of  the  year  to  the  State  service  for  nothing ; 


PROUD  CONNECTICUT. 


243 


but  it  may  be  presumed  that  in  each  State  there  are  a  few. 
Those  who  arc  induced  to  devote  their  time  by  the  payment 
of  60?.  can  hardly  be  the  men  most  fitted  for  the  purpose 
of  legislation.  It  certainly  has  seemed  to  me  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  State  legislatures  and  of  the  State  governments 
are  not  held  in  that  respect  and  treated  with  that  confidence 
to  which,  in  the  eyes  of  an  Englishman,  such  functionaries 
should  be  held  as  entitled. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

BOSTON. 

From  New  York  we  returned  to  Boston  by  Hartford,  the 
capital  or  one  of  the  capitals  of  Connecticut.  This  proud 
little  State  is  composed  of  two  old  provinces,  of  which  Hart- 
ford and  New  Haven  were  the  two  metropolitan  towns. 
Indeed,  there  was  a  third  colony,  called  Saybrook,  which 
was  joined  to  Hartford.  As  neither  of  the  two  could,  of 
course,  give  way,  when  Hartford  and  New  Haven  were 
made  into  one,  the  houses  of  legislature  and  the  seat  of 
government  are  changed  about  year  by  year.  Connecticut 
is  a  very  proud  little  State,  and  has  a  pleasant  legend  of 
its  own  stanchness  in  the  old  colonial  days.  In  1662  the 
colonies  were  united,  and  a  charter  was  given  to  them  by 
Charles  II.  But  some  years  later,  in  1686,  when  the  bad 
days  of  James  II.  had  come,  this  charter  was  considered 
to  be  too  liberal,  and  order  was  given  that  it  should  be  sus- 
pended. One  Sir  Edmund  Andross  had  been  appointed 
governor  of  all  New  England,  and  sent  word  from  Boston 
to  Connecticut  that  the  charter  itself  should  be  given  up  to 
him.  This  the  men  of  Connecticut  refused  to  do.  Where- 
upon Sir  Edmund  with  a  military  following  presented  him- 
self at  their  Assembly,  declared  their  governing  powers  to 
be  dissolved,  and,  after  much  palaver,  caused  the  charter 
itself  to  be  laid  upon  the  table  before  him.  The  discussion 
had  been  long,  having  lasted  through  the  day  into  the  night, 


244 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


and  the  room  had  been  lighted  with  candles.  On  a  sudden 
each  light  disappeared,  and  Sir  Edmund  with  his  followers 
were  in  the  darl^.  As  a  matter  of  course,  when  the  h'ght 
was  restored  the  charter  was  gone  ;  and  Sir  Edmund,  the 
governor-general,  was  baffled,  as  all  governors-general  and 
all  Sir  Edmunds  alwaj^s  are  in  such  cases.  The  charter  was 
gone,  a  gallant  Captain  Wads  worth  having  carried  it  off 
and  hidden  it  in  an  oak-tree.  The  charter  was  renewed 
when  William  III.  came  to  the  throne,  and  now  hangs  tri- 
umphantly in  the  State  House  at  Hartford.  The  charter 
oak  has,  alas  !  succumbed  to  the  weather,  but  was  standing 
a  few  years  since.  The  men  of  Hartford  are  very  proud  of 
their  charter,  and  regard  it  as  the  parent  of  their  existing 
liberties  quite  as  much  as  though  no  national  revolution  of 
their  own  had  intervened. 

And,  indeed,  the  Northern  States  of  the  Union — espe- 
cially those  of  New  England — refer  all  their  liberties  to  the 
old  charters  which  they  held  from  the  mother  country. 
They  rebelled,  as  they  themselves  would  seem  to  say,  and 
set  themselves  up  as  a  separate  people,  not  because  the 
mother  country  had  refused  to  them  by  law  sufficient  liberty 
and  sufficient  self-control,  but  because  the  mother  country 
infringed  the  liberties  and  powers  of  self-control  which  she 
herself  had  given.  The  mother  country,  so  these  States 
declare,  had  acted  the  part  of  Sir  Edmund  Andross — had 
endeavored  to  take  away  their  charters.  So  they  also  put 
out  the  lights,  and  took  themselves  to  an  oak-tree  of  their 
own — which  is  still  standing,  though  winds  from  the  infer- 
nal regions  are  now  battering  its  branches.  Long  may  it 
stand  ! 

Whether  the  mother  country  did  or  did  not  infringe  the 
charters  she  had  given,  I  will  not  here  inquire.  As  to  the 
nature  of  those  alleged  infringements,  are  they  not  written 
down  to  the  number  of  twenty-seven  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence?  They  mostly  begin  with  He.  "He"  has 
done  this,  and  "He"  has  done  that.  The  "He"  is  poor 
George  III,,  whose  twenty-seven  mortal  sins  against  his 
Transatlantic  colonies  are  thus  recapitulated.  It  would 
avail  nothing  to  argue  now  whether  those  deeds  were  sins 
or  virtues,  nor  would  it  have  availed  then.  The  child  had 
grown  up  and  was  strong,  and  chose  to  go  alone  into  the 
world.  The  young  bird  was  fledged,  and  flew  away.  Poor 
George  III.  with  his  cackling  was  certainly  not  efficacious 


CONSTITUTIONS. 


245 


in  restraining  such  a  flight.  But  it  is  gratifying  to  see  how 
this  new  people,  when  they  had  it  in  their  power  to  change 
all  their  laws,  to  throw  themselves  upon  any  Utopian  theory 
that  the  folly  of  a  wild  philanthropy  could  devise,  to  discard 
as  abominable  every  vestige  of  English  rule  and  English 
power, — it  is  gratifying  to  see  that,  when  they  could  have 
done  all  this,  they  did  not  do  so,  but  preferred  to  cling  to 
things  English.  Their  old  colonial  limits  were  still  to  be 
the  borders  of  their  States.  Their  old  charters  were  still 
to  be  regarded  as  the  sources  from  whence  their  State 
powers  had  come.  The  old  laws  were  to  remain  in  force. 
The  precedents  of  the  English  courts  were  to  be  held  as 
legal  precedents  in  the  courts  of  the  new  nation,  and  are 
now  so  held.  It  was  still  to  be  England,  but  England  with- 
out a  king  making  his  last  struggle  for  political  power. 
This  was  the  idea  of  the  people  and  this  was  their  feeling ; 
and  that  idea  has  been  carried  out  and  that  feeling  has 
remained. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York  nothing  is 
said  about  the  religion  of  the  people.  It  was  regarded  as 
a  subject  with  which  the  constitution  had  no  concern  what- 
ever. But  as  soon  as  we  come  among  the  stricter  people 
of  New  England,  we  find  that  the  constitution-makers  have 
not  been  able  absolutely  to  ignore  the  subject.  In  Con- 
necticut it  is  enjoined  that,  as  it  is  the  duty  of  all  men  to 
worship  the  Supreme  Being,  and  their  right  to  render  that 
worship  in  the  mode  most  consistent  with  their  consciences, 
no  person  shall  be  by  law  compelled  to  join  or  be  classed 
with  any  religious  association.  The  line  of  argument  is 
hardly  logical,  the  conclusion  not  being  in  accordance  with 
or  hanging  on  the  first  of  the  two  premises.  But  neverthe- 
less the  meaning  is  clear.  In  a  free  country  no  man  shall 
be  made  to  worship  after  any  special  fashion  ;  but  it  is  de- 
creed by  the  constitution  that  every  man  is  bound  by  duty 
to  worship  after  some  fashion.  The  article  then  goes  on  to 
say  how  they  who  do  worship  are  to  be  taxed  for  the  sup- 
port of  their  peculiar  church.  I  am  not  quite  clear  whether 
the  New  Yorkers  have  not  managed  this  difficulty  with  greater 
success.  When  we  come  to  the  Old  Bay  State — to  Massa- 
chusetts— we  find  the  Christian  religion  spoken  of  in  the 
constitution  as  that  which  in  some  one  of  its  forms  should 
receive  the  adherence  of  every  good  citizen. 

Hartford  is  a  pleasant  little  town,  with  English-looking 
2i* 


246 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


houses,  and  au  English-looking  country  around  it.  Here, 

as  everywhere  through  the  States,  one  is  struck  by  the  size 
and  comfort  of  the  residences.  I  sojouriied  there  at  the 
house  of  a  friend,  and  could  find  no  limit  to  the  number  of 
spacious  sitting-rooms  which  it  contained.  The  modest 
dining-room  and  drawing-room  which  suffice  with  us  for 
men  of  seven  or  eight  hundred  a  year  would  be  regarded  as 
very  mean  accommodation  by  persons  of  similar  incomes  in 
the  States. 

I  found  that  Hartford  was  all  alive  with  trade,  and  that 
wages  were  high,  because  there  are  there  two  factories  for 
the  manufacture  of  arms.  Colt's  pistols  come  from  Hart- 
ford, as  also  do  Sharpe's  rifles.  Wherever  arms  can  be 
prepared,  or  gunpowder;  where  clothes  or  blankets  fit  for 
soldiers  can  be  made,  or  tents  or  standards,  or  things  ap- 
pertaining in  any  way  to  warfare,  there  trade  was  still  brisk. 
No  being  is  more  costly  in  his  requirements  than  a  soldier, 
and  no  soldier  so  costly  as  the  American.  He  must  eat 
and  drink  of  the  best,  and  have  good  boots  and  warm  bed- 
ding, and  good  shelter.  There  were  during  the  Christmas 
of  1861  above  half  a  million  of  soldiers  so  to  be  provided — 
the  President,  in  his  message  made  in  December  to  Con- 
gress, declared  the  number  to  be  above  six  hundred  thou- 
sand— and  therefore  in  such  places  as  Hartford  trade  was 
very  brisk.  I  went  over  the  rifle  factory,  and  was  shown 
everything,  but  I  do  not  know  that  I  brought  away  much 
with  me  that  was  worth  any  reader's  attention.  The  best 
of  rifles,  I  have  no  doubt,  were  being  made  with  the  greatest 
rapidity,  and  all  were  sent  to  the  army  as  soon  as  finished. 
I  saw  some  murderous-looking  weapons,  with  swords  at- 
tached to  them  instead  of  bayonets,  but  have  siuce  been 
told  by  soldiers  that  the  old-fashioned  bayonet  is  thought  to 
be  more  serviceable. 

Immediately  on  my  arrival  in  Boston  I  heard  that  Mr. 
Emerson  was  going  to  lecture  at  the  Tremont  Hall  on  the 
subject  of  the  war,  and  I  resolved  to  go  and  hear  him.  I 
was  acquainted  with  Mr.  Emerson,  and  by  reputation  knew 
him  well.  Among  us  in  England  he  is  regarded  as  trans- 
cendental, and  perhaps  even  as  mystic  in  his  philosophy. 
His  "  Kepresentative  Men"  is  the  work  by  wliich  he  is  best 
known  on  our  side  of  the  Avater,  and  I  have  heard  some 
readers  declare  that  they  could  not  quite  understand  Mr. 
Emerson's  "Representative  Men."    For  myself,  I  confess 


LECTURE  BY  EMERSON. 


241 


that  I  had  broken  down  over  some  portions  of  that  book. 
Since  I  had  become  acquainted  with  him  I  had  read  others 
of  his  writings,  especially  his  book  on  England,  and  had 
found  that  he  improved  greatly  on  acquaintance.  I  think 
that  he  has  confined  his  mysticism  to  the  book  above  named. 
In  conversation  he  is  very  clear,  and  by  no  means  above 
the  small  practical  things  of  the  world.  He  would,  I  fancy, 
know  as  well  what  interest  he  ought  to  receive  for  his 
money  as  though  he  were  no  philosopher,  and  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  if  he  held  land  he  would  make  his  hay  while 
the  sun  shone,  as  might  any  common  farmer.  Before  I  had 
met  Mr.  Emerson,  when  my  idea  of  him  was  formed  simply 
on  the  ''Representative  Men,"  I  should  have  thought  that 
a  lecture  from  him  on  the  war  would  have  taken  his  hearers 
all  among  the  clouds.  As  it  was,  I  still  had  my  doubts, 
and  was  inclined  to  fear  that  a  subject  which  could  only  be 
handled  usefully  at  such  a  time  before  a  large  audience  by 
a  combination  of  common  sense,  high  principles,  and  elo- 
quence, would  hardly  be  safe  in  Mr.  Emerson's  hands.  I 
did  not  doubt  the  high  principles,  but  feared  much  that 
there  would  be  a  lack  of  common  sense.  So  many  have 
talked  on  that  subject,  and  have  shown  so  great  a  lack  of 
common  sense !  As  to  the  eloquence,  that  might  be  there 
or  might  not. 

Mr.  Emerson  is  a  Massachusetts  man,  very  well  known 
in  Boston,  and  a  great  crowd  was  collected  to  hear  him.  I 
suppose  there  were  some  three  thousand  persons  in  the 
room.  I  confess  that  when  he  took  his  place  before  us  my 
prejudices  were  against  him.  The  matter  in  hand  required 
no  philosophy.  It  required  common  sense,  and  the  very 
best  of  common  sense.  It  demanded  that  he  should  be  im- 
passioned, for  of  what  interest  can  any  address  be  on  a 
matter  of  public  politics  without  passion  ?  But  it  demanded 
that  the  passion  should  be  winnowed,  and  free  from  all 
rodomontade.  I  fancied  what  might  be  said  on  such  a 
subject  as  to  that  overlauded  star-spangled  banner,  and 
how  the  star-spangled  flag  would  look  when  wrapped  in  a 
mist  of  mystic  Platonism. 

But  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  there  was  nothing 
mystic — no  Platonism ;  and,  if  I  remember  rightly,  the  star- 
spangled  banner  was  altogether  omitted.  To  the  national 
eagle  he  did  allude.  "Your  American  eagle,"  he  said,  "is 
very  well.    Protect  it  here  and  abroad.    But  beware  of 


248 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  American  peacock."  He  gave  an  account  of  the  war 
from  the  beginning,  showing  how  it  had  arisen,  and  how  it 
had  been  conducted;  and  he  did  so  with  admirable  sim- 
plicity and  truth.  He  thought  the  North  were  right  about 
the  war;  and  as  I  thought  so  also,  I  was  not  called  upon 
to  disagree  with  him.  He  was  terse  and  perspicuous  in  his 
sentences,  practical  in  his  advice,  and,  above  all  things, 
true  in  what  he  said  to  his  audience  of  themselves.  They 
who  know  America  will  understand  how  hard  it  is  for  a 
public  man  in  the  States  to  practice  such  truth  in  his  ad- 
dresses. Fluid  compliments  and  high-flown  national  eulo- 
gium  are  expected.  In  this  instance  none  were  forthcoming. 
The  North  had  risen  with  patriotism  to  make  this  effort, 
and  it  was  now  warned  that  in  doing  so  it  was  simply  doing 
its  national  duty.  And  then  came  the  subject  of  slavery. 
I  had  been  told  that  Mr.  Emerson  was  an  abolitionist,  and 
knew  that  I  must  disagree  with  him  on  that  head,  if  on  no 
other.  To  me  it  has  always  seemed  that  to  mix  up  the 
question  of  general  abolition  with  this  war  must  be  the 
work  of  a  man  too  ignorant  to  understand  the  real  subject 
of  the  war,  or  too  false  to  his  country  to  regard  it. 
Throughout  the  whole  lecture  I  was  waiting  for  Mr.  Emer- 
son's abolition  doctrine,  but  no  abolition  doctrine  came. 
The  words  abolition  and  compensation  were  mentioned, 
and  then  there  was  an  end  of  the  subject.  If  Mr.  Emerson 
be  an  abolitionist,  he  expressed  his  views  very  mildly  on 
that  occasion.  On  the  whole,  the  lecture  was  excellent, 
and  that  little  advice  about  the  peacock  was  in  itself  worth 
an  hour's  attention. 

That  practice  of  lecturing  is  "quite  an  institution"  in  the 
States.  So  it  is  in  England,  my  readers  will  say.  But  in 
England  it  is  done  in  a  different  way,  with  a  different  ob- 
ject, and  with  much  less  of  result.  With  us,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  lectures  are  mostly  given  gratuitously  by  the  lec- 
turer. They  are  got  up  here  and  there  with  some  philan- 
thropical  olDject,  and  in  the  hope  that  an  hour  at  the 
disposal  of  young  men  and  women  may  be  rescued  from 
idleness.  The  subjects  chosen  are  social,  literary,  philan- 
thropic, romantic,  geographical,  scientilic,  religious — any- 
thing rather  than  political.  The  lecture-rooms  are  not 
usually  filled  to  overflowing,  and  there  is  often  a  question 
whether  the  real  good  achieved  is  worth  the  trouble  taken. 
The  most  popular  lectures  are  given  by  big  people,  whose 


V 


LECTURES. 


249 


presence  is  likely  to  be  attractive;  and  the  whole  thing,  I 
fear  we  must  confess,  is  not  pre-eminently  successful.  In 
the  Northern  States  of  America  the  matter  stands  on  a 
very  different  footing.  Lectures  there  are  more  popular 
than  cither  theaters  or  concerts.  Enormous  halls  are  built 
for  them.  Tickets  for  long  courses  are  taken  with  avidity. 
Very  large  sums  are  paid  to  popular  lecturers,  so  that  the 
profession  is  lucrative — more  so,  I  am  given  to  understand, 
than  is  the  cognate  profession  of  literature.  The  whole 
thing  is  done  in  great  style.  Music  is  introduced.  The 
lecturer  stands  on  a  large  raised  platform,  on  which  sit 
around  him  the  bald  and  hoary-headed  and  superlatively 
wise.  Ladies  come  in  large  numbers,  especially  those 
who  aspire  to  soar  above  the  frivolities  of  the  world.  Poli- 
tics is  the  subject  most  popular,  and  most  general.  The 
men  and  women  of  Boston  could  no  more  do  without  their 
lectures  than  those  of  Paris  could  without  their  theaters. 
It  is  the  decorous  diversion  of  the  best  ordered  of  her  citi- 
zens. The  fast  young  men  go  to  clubs,  and  the  fast  young 
women  to  dances,  as  fast  young  men  and  women  do  in 
other  places  that  are  wicked ;  but  lecturing  is  the  favorite 
diversion  of  the  steady-minded  Bostonian.  After  all,  I  do 
not  know  that  the  result  is  very  good.  It  does  not  seem 
that  much  will  be  gained  by  such  lectures  on  either  side  of 
the  Atlantic — except  that  respectable  killing  of  an  evening 
which  might  otherwise  be  killed  less  respectably.  It  is  but 
an  industrious  idleness,  an  attempt  at  a  royal  road  to  infor- 
mation, that  habit  of  attending  lectures.  Let  any  man  or 
woman  say  what  he  has  brought  away  from  any  such  at- 
tendance. It  is  attractive,  that  idea  of  being  studious  with- 
out any  of  the  labor  of  study;  but  I  fear  it  is  illusive.  If 
an  evening  can  be  so  passed  without  ennui,  I  believe  that 
that  may  be  regarded  as  the  best  result  to  be  gained.  But 
then  it  so  often  happens  that  the  evening  is  not  passed 
without  ennui!  Of  course  in  saying  this,  I  am  not  olluding 
to  lectures  given  in  special  places  as  a  course  of  special 
study.  Medical  lectures  are,  or  may  be,  a  necessary  part 
of  medical  education.  As  many  as  two  or  three  thousand 
often  attend  these  popular  lectures  in  Boston,  but  I  do  not 
know  whether  on  that  account  the  popular  subjects  are 
much  better  understood.  Nevertheless  I  resolved  to  hear 
more,  hoping  that  I  might  in  that  way  teach  myself  to 
understand  what  were  the  popular  politics  in  New  England. 


250  NORTH  AMERICA. 

Whether  or  no  I  may  have  learned  this  in  any  other  way,  I 
do  not  perhaps  know;  but  at  any  rate  I  did  not  learn  it  in 
this  way. 

The  next  lecture  which  I  attended  was  also  given  in  the 
Tremont  Hall,  and  on  this  occasion  also  the  subject  of  the 
war  was  to  be  treated.  The  special  treachery  of  the  rebels 
was,  I  think,  the  matter  to  be  taken  in  hand.  On  this 
occasion  also  the  room  was  full,  and  my  hopes  of  a  pleas- 
ant hour  ran  high.  For  some  fifteen  minutes  I  listened, 
and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  gentleman  discoursed  in 
excellent  English.  He  was  master  of  that  wonderful 
fluency  which  is  peculiarly  the  gift  of  an  American.  He 
went  on  from  one  sentence  to  another  with  rhythmic  tones 
and  unerring  pronunciation.  He  never  faltered,  never  re- 
peated his  words,  never  fell  into  those  vile  half-muttered 
hems  and  haws  by  which  an  Englishman  in  such  a  position 
so  generally  betrays  his  timidity.  But  during  the  whole 
time  of  my  remaining  in  the  room  he  did  not  give  expres- 
sion to  a  single  thought.  He  went  on  from  one  soft  plati- 
tude to  another,  and  uttered  words  from  which  I  would 
defy  any  one  of  his  audience  to  carry  away  with  them  any- 
thing. And  yet  it  seemed  to  me  that  his  audience  was 
satisfied.  I  was  not  satisfied,  and  managed  to  escape  out 
of  the  room. 

The  next  lecturer  to  whom  T  listened  was  Mr.  Everett. 
Mr.  Everett's  reputation  as  an  orator  is  very  great,  and  I 
was  especially  anxious  to  hear  him.  I  had  long  since 
known  that  his  power  of  delivery  was  very  marvelous; 
that  his  tones,  elocution,  and  action  were  all  great;  and 
that  he  was  able  to  command  the  minds  and  sympathies  of 
his  audience  in  a  remarkable  manner.  His  subject  also 
was  the  war — or  rather  the  causes  of  the  war  and  its  quali- 
fication. Had  the  North  given  to  the  South  cause  of  pro- 
vocation ?  Had  the  South  been  fair  and  honest  in  its  deal- 
ings to  the  North  ?  Had  any  compromise  been  possible  by 
which  the  war  might  have  been  avoided,  and  the  rights  and 
dignity  of  the  North  preserved  ?  Seeing  that  Mr.  Everett 
is  a  Northern  man  and  was  lecturing  to  a  Boston  audience, 
one  knew  well  how  these  questions  would  be  answered,  but 
the  manner  of  the  answering  would  be  everything.  This 
lecture  was  given  at  Roxbury,  one  of  the  suburbs  of  Bos- 
ton. So  I  went  out  to  Roxbury  with  a  party,  and  found 
myself  honored  by  being  placed  on  the  platform  among  the 


LECTURES. 


251 


bald-headed  ones  and  the  superlatively  wise.  This  privilege 
is  naturally  gratifying,  but  it  entails  on  him  who  is  so  grati- 
fied the  inconvenience  of  sitting  at  the  lecturer's  back, 
whereas  it  is,  perhaps,  better  for  the  listener  to  be  before 
his  face. 

I -could  not  but  be  amused  by  one  little  scenic  incident. 
When  we  all  went  upon  the  platform,  some  one  proposed 
that  the  clergymen  should  lead  the  way  out  of  the  little 
waiting-room  in  which  we  bald-headed  ones  and  super- 
latively wise  were  assembled.  But  to  this  the  manager  of 
the  affair  demurred.  He  wanted  the  clergymen  for  a  pur- 
pose, he  said.  And  so  the  profane  ones  led  the  way,  and 
the  clergymen,  of  whom  there  might  be  some  six  or  seven, 
clustered  in  around  the  lecturer  at  last.  Early  in  his  dis- 
course, Mr.  Everett  told  us  what  it  was  that  the  country 
needed  at  this  period  of  her  trial.  Patriotism,  courage, 
the  bravery  of  the  men,  the  good  wishes  of  the  women,  the 
self-denial  of  all — "and,"  continued  the  lecturer,  turning 
to  his  immediate  neighbors,  "  the  prayers  of  these  holy 
men  whom  I  see  around  me."  It  had  not  been  for  nothing 
that  the  clergymen  were  detained. 

Mr.  Everett  lectures  without  any  book  or  paper  before 
him,  and  continues  from  first  to  last  as  though  the  words 
came  from  him  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  It  is  known, 
however,  that  it  is  his  practice  to  prepare  his  orations  with 
great  care  and  commit  them  entirely  to  memory,  as  does  an 
actor.  Indeed,  he  repeats  the  same  lecture  over  and  over 
again,  I  am  told,  without  the  change  of  a  word  or  of  an 
action.  I  did  not  like  Mr.  Everett's  lecture.  I  did  not 
like  what  he  said,  or  the  seeming  spirit  in  which  it  was 
framed.  But  I  am  bound  to  admit  that  his  power  of  oratory 
is  very  wonderful.  Those  among  his  countrymen  who  have 
criticised  his  manner  in  my  hearing,  have  said  that  he  is  too 
florid,  that  there  is  an  affectation  in  the  motion  of  his  hands, 
and  that  the  intended  pathos  of  his  voice  sometimes  ap- 
proaches too  near  the  precipice  over  which  the  fall  is  so 
deep  and  rapid,  and  at  the  bottom  of  which  lies  absolute 
ridicule.  Judging  for  myself,  I  did  not  find  it  so.  My 
position  for  seeing  was  not  good,  but  my  ear  was  not  of- 
fended. Critics  also  should  bear  in  mind  that  an  orator 
does  not  speak  chiefly  to  them  or  for  their  approval.  He 
who  writes,  or  speaks,  or  sings  for  thousands,  must  write, 
speak,  or  sing  as  those  thousands  would  have  him.  That 


252 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


to  a  dainty  connoisseur  will  be  false  music,  which  to  the 
general  ear  shall  be  accounted  as  the  perfection  of  harmony. 
An  eloquence  altogether  suited  to  the  fastidious  and  hyper- 
critical, would  probably  fail  to  carry  off  the  hearts  and  in- 
terest the  sympathies  of  the  young  and  eager.  As  regards 
manners,  lone,  and  choice  of  words,  I  think  that  the  oratory 
of  Mr.  Everett  places  him  very  high.  His  skill  in  his  work 
is  perfect.  He  never  falls  back  upon  a  word.  He  never 
repeats  himself.  His  voice  is  always  perfectly  under  com- 
mand. As  Tor  hesitation  or  timidity,  the  days  for  those 
failings  have  long  passed  by  with  him.  When  he  makes  a 
point,  he  makes  it  well,  and  drives  it  home  to  the  intelligence 
of  every  one  before  him.  Even  that  appeal  to  the  holy 
men  around  him  sounded  well— or  would  have  done  so  had 
I  not  been  present  at  that  little  arrangement  in  the  ante- 
room.   On  the  audience  at  large  it  was  manifestly  effective. 

But  nevertheless  the  lecture  gave  me  but  a  poor  idea  of 
Mr.  Everett  as  a  politician,  though  it  made  me  regard  him 
highly  as  an  orator.  It  was  impossible  not  to  perceive  that 
he  was  anxious  to  utter  the  sentiments  of  the  audience 
rather  than  his  own ;  that  he  was  making  himself  an  echo, 
a  powerful  and  harmonious  echo  of  what  he  conceived  to 
be  public  opinion  in  Boston  at  that  moment;  that  he  was 
neither  leading  nor  teaching  the  people  before  him,  but 
allowing  himself  to  be  led  by  them,  so  that  he  might  best 
play  his  present  part  for  their  delectation.  He  was  neither 
bold  nor  honest,  as  Emerson  had  been,  and  I  could  not  but 
feel  that  every  tyro  of  a  politician  before  him  would  thus 
recognize  his  want  of  boldness  and  of  honesty.  Asa  states- 
man, or  as  a  critic  of  statecraft,  and  of  other  statesmen,  he 
is  wanting  in  backbone.  For  many  years  Mr.  Everett  has 
been  not  even  inimical  to  Southern  politics  and  Southern 
courses,  nor  was  he  among  those  who,  during  the  last  eight 
years  previous  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  election,  fought  the  battle 
for  Northern  principles.  I  do  not  say  that  on  this  account 
he  is  now  false  to  advocate  the  war.  But  he  cannot  carry 
men  with  him  when,  at  his  age,  he  advocates  it  by  argu- 
ments opposed  to  the  tenor  of  his  long  political  life.  His 
abuse  of  the  South  and  of  Southern  ideas  was  as  virulent 
as  might  be  that  of  a  young  lad  now  beginning  his  political 
career,  or  of  one  who  had  through  life  advocated  abolition 
principles.  He  heaped  reproaches  on  poor  Virginia,  whose 
position  as  the  chief  of  the  border  States  has  given  to  her 


LECTURES. 


253 


hardly  the  possibility  of  avoiding  a  Scylla  of  ruin  on  the 
one  side,  or  a  Charybdis  of  rebellion  on  the  other.  Whei? 
he  spoke  as  he  did  of  Virginia,  ridiculing  the  idea  of  her 
sacred  soil,  even  I,  Englishman  as  I  am,  could  not  but  think 
of  Washington,  of  Jefferson,  of  Randolph,  and  of  Madison. 
He  should  not  have  spoken  of  Virginia  as  he  did  speak  ; 
for  no  man  could  have  known  better  Virginia's  difficulties. 
But  Virginia  was  at  a  discount  in  Boston,  and  Mr.  Ev(  rett 
was  speaking  to  a  Boston  audience.  And  then  he  rei erred 
'  to  England  and  to  Europe.  Mr.  Everett  has  been  minister 
to  England,  and  knows  the  people.  He  is  a  student  of  his- 
tory, and  must,  I  think,  know  that  England's  career  has  not 
been  unhappy  or  unprosperous.  But  England  also  was  at 
a  discount  in  Boston,  and  Mr.  Everett  was  speaking  to  a 
Boston  audience.  They  are  sending  us  their  advice  across 
the  water,  said  Mr.  Everett.  And  what  is  their  advice  to 
us  ?  That  we  should  come  down  from  the  high  place  we  have 
built  for  ourselves,  and  be  even  as  they  are.  They  screech 
at  us  from  the  low  depths  in  which  they  are  wallowirg  m 
their  misery,  and  call  on  us  to  join  them  in  their  wretched- 
ness. I  am  not  quoting  Mr.  Everett's  very  words,  for  I 
have  not  them  by  me;  but  I  am  not  making  them  stronger, 
nor  so  strong  as  he  made  them.  As  I  thought  of  Mr.  Ever- 
ett's reputation,  and  of  his  years  of  study,  of  his  long  po- 
litical life  and  unsurpassed  sources  of  information,  I  could 
not  but  grieve  heartily  when  I  heard  such  words  fall  from 
him.  I  could  not  but  ask  myself  whether  it  were  impossi- 
ble that  under  the  present  circumstances  of  her  constitution 
this  great  nation  of  America  should  produce  an  honest,  high- 
minded  statesman.  When  Lincoln  and  Hamlin,  the  exist- 
ing President  and  Vice-President  of  the  States,  were  in 
1860  as  yet  but  the  candidates  of  the  Republican  party.  Bell 
and  Everett  also  were  the  candidates  of  the  old  Whig,  con- 
servative party.  Their  express  theory  was  this  —  that  the 
question  of  slavery  should  not  be  touched.  Their  purpose 
■was  to  crush  agitation  and  restore  harmony  by  an  impartial 
balance  between  the  ^vorth  and  South  :  a  fine  purpose — the 
finest  of  all  purposes,  had  it  been  practicable.  But  such  a 
course  of  compromise  was  now  at  a  discount  in  Boston,  and 
Mr.  Everett  was  speaking  to  a  Boston  audience.  As  an 
orator,  Mr.  Everett's  excellence  is,  I  think,  not  to  be  ques- 
tioned ;  but  as  a  politician  I  cannot  give  him  a  high  rank. 
After  that  I  heard  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips.  Of  him  too, 
22 


254 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


as  an  orator,  all  the  world  of  Massachusetts  speaks  with 
great  admiration,  and  I  have  no  doubt  so  speaks  v/ith  jus- 
tice. He  is,  however,  known  as  the  hottest  and  most  im- 
passioned advocate  of  abolition.  Not  many  months  since 
the  cause  of  abolition,  as  advocated  by  him,  was  so  unpop- 
ular in  Boston,  that  Mr.  Phillips  was  compelled  to  address 
his  audience  surrounded  by  a  guard  of  policemen.  Of  this 
gentleman  I  may  at  any  rate  say  that  he  is  consistent,  de- 
voted, and  disinterested.  He  is  an  abolitionist  by  profession, 
and  seeks  to  find  in  every  turn  of  the  tide  of  politics  some 
stream  on  which  he  may  bring  himself  nearer  to  his  object. 
In  the  old  days,  previous  to  the  selection  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  days  so  old  that  they  are  now  nearly  eigliteen  months 
past,  Mr.  Phillips  was  an  anti-Union  man.  He  advocated 
strongly  the  disseverance  of  the  Union,  so  that  the  country 
to  which  he  belonged  might  have  hands  clean  from  the  taint 
of  slavery.  He  had  probably  acknowledged  to  himself  that 
while  the  North  and  South  were  bound  together  no  hope 
existed  of  emancipation,  but  that  if  the  North  stood  alone 
the  South  would  become  too  weak  to  foster  and  keep  alive 
the  "social  institution."  In  which,  if  such  were  his  opin- 
ions, I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  But  now  he  is  all  for 
the  Union,  thinking  that  a  victorious  North  can  compel  the 
immediate  emancipation  of  Southern  slaves.  As  to  which 
I  beg  to  say  that  I  am  bold  to  differ  from  Mr.  Phillips  alto- 
gether. 

It  soon  became  evident  to  me  that  Mr.  Phillips  was  unwell, 
and  lecturing  at  a  disadvantage.  His  manner  was  clearly 
that  of  an  accustomed  orator,  bat  his  voice  was  weak,  and 
he  was  not  up  to  the  effect  which  he  attempted  to  make. 
His  hearers  were  impatient,  repeatedly  calling  upon  him  to 
speak  out,  and  on  that  account  I  tried  hard  to  feel  kindly 
toward  him  and  his  lecture.  But  I  must  confess  that  I 
failed.  To  me  it  seemed  that  the  doctrine  he  preached  was 
one  of  rapine,  bloodshed,  and  social  destruction.  He  would 
call  upon  the  government  and  upon  Congress  to  enfranchise 
the  slaves  at  once  —  now  during  the  war  —  so  that  the 
Southern  power  might  be  destroyed  by  a  concurrence  of 
misfortunes.  And  he  would  do  so  at  once,  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  fearing  lest  the  South  should  be  before  him, 
and  themselves  emancipate  their  own  bondsmen.  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  there  is  no  being  so  venomous,  so 
blood-thirsty  as  a  professed  philanthropist ;  and  that  when 


LECTURES. 


255 


the  philanthropist's  ardor  lies  negroward,  it  then  assumes 
the  deepest  die  of  venom  and  blood-thirstiness.  There  are 
four  millions  of  slaves  in  the  Southern  States,  none  of  whom 
have  any  capacit}"  for  self-maintenance  or  self-control.  Four 
millions  of  slaves,  with  the  necessities  of  children,  with  the 
passions  of  men,  and  the  ignorance  of  savages  !  And  Mr. 
Phillips  would  emancipate  these  at  a  blow  ;  would,  were  it 
possible  for  him  to  do  so,  set  them  loose  upon  the  soil  to 
tear  their  masters,  destroy  each  other,  and  make  such  a  hell 
upon  the  earth  as  has  never  even  yet  come  from  the  uncon- 
trolled passions  and  unsatisfied  wants  of  men.  But  Con- 
gress cannot  do  this.  All  the  members  of  Congress  put 
together  cannot,  according  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  emancipate  a  single  slave  in  South  Carolina  ; 
not  if  tliey  were  all  unanimous.  Xo  emancipation  in  a 
slave  State  can  come  otherwise  than  by  the  legislative  en- 
actment of  that  State.  But  it  was  then  thought  that  in 
this  coming  winter  of  1860-61  the  action  of  Congress 
might  be  set  aside.  The  North  possessed  an  enormous 
army  under  the  control  of  the  President.  The  South  was 
in  rebellion,  and  the  President  could  pronounce,  and  the 
army  perhaps  enforce,  the  confiscation  of  all  property  held 
in  slaves.  If  any  who  held  them  were  not  disloyal,  the 
question  of  compensation  might  be  settled  afterward.  How 
those  four  million  slaves  should  live,  and  how^  white  men 
should  live  among  them,  in  some  States  or  parts  of  States 
not  equal  to  the  blacks  in  number — as  to  that  Mr.  Phillips 
did  not  give  us  his  opinion. 

And  Mr.  Phillips  also  could  not  keep  his  tongue  away 
from  the  abominations  of  Englishmen  and  the  miraculous 
powers  of  his  own  countrymen.  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  he  told  us  more  than  once  how  Yankees  carried  brains 
in  their  fingers,  whereas  ''common  people" — alluding  by 
that  name  to  Europeans — had  them  only,  if  at  all,  inside 
their  brain-pans.  And  then  he  informed  us  that  Lord  Pal- 
merston  had  always  hated  America.  Among  the  Radicals 
there  might  be  one  or  two  who  understood  and  valued  the 
institutions  of  America,  but  it  w^as  a  well-knovvn  fact  that 
Lord  Palmerston  was  hostile  to  the  country.  Nothing  but 
hidden  enmity — enmity  hidden  or  not  hidden  —  could  be 
expected  from  England.  That  the  people  of  Boston,  or  of 
Massachusetts,  or  of  the  North  generally,  should  feel  sore 
against  England,  is  to  me  intelligible.     I  know  how  the 


256 


NOHTH  AMERICA. 


minds  of  men  are  moved  in  masses  to  certain  feelings,  and 
that  it  ever  must  be  so.  Men  in  common  talk  are  not 
bound  to  weigh  their  words,  to  think,  and  speculate  on 
their  results,  and  be  sure  of  the  premises  on  which  their 
thoughts  are  founded.  But  it  is  different  with  a  man  who 
rises  before  two  or  three  thousand  of  his  countrymen  to 
teach  and  instruct  them.  After  that  I  heard  no  more 
political  lectures  in  Boston. 

Of  course  I  visited  Bunker  Hill,  and  went  to  Lexington 
and  Concord.  From  the  top  of  the  monument  on  Bunker 
Hill  there  is  a  fine  view  of  Boston  harbor,  and  seen  from 
thence  the  harbor  is  picturesque.  The  mouth  is  crowded 
with  islands  and  jutting  necks  and  promontories ;  and 
though  the  shores  are  in  no  place  rich  enough  to  make  the 
scenery  grand,  the  general  effect  is  good.  The  monument, 
however,  is  so  constructed  that  one  can  hardly  get  a  view- 
through  the  windows  at  the  top  of  it,  and  there  is  no  out- 
side gallery  round  it.  Immediately  below  the  monument 
is  a  marble  figure  of  Major  Warren,  who  fell  there, — not 
from  the  top  of  the  monument,  as  some  one  was  led  to 
believe  when  informed  that  on  that  spot  the  major  had 
fallen.  Bunker  Hill,  which  is  little  more  than  a  mound, 
is  at  Charlestown — a  dull,  populous,  respectable,  and  very 
unattractive  suburb  of  Boston. 

Bunker  Hill  has  obtained  a  considerable  name,  and  is 
accounted  great  in  the  annals  of  American  history.  In 
England  we  have  all  heard  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  some  of  us 
dislike  the  sound  as  much  as  Frenchmen  do  that  of  Water- 
loo. In  the  States  men  talk  of  Bunker  Hill  as  we  may, 
perhaps,  talk  of  Agincourt  and  such  favorite  fields.  But, 
after  all,  little  was  done  at  Bunker  Hill,  and,  as  far  as  I 
can  learn,  no  victory  was  gained  there  by  either  party. 
The  road  from  Boston  to  the  town  of  Concord,  on  which 
stands  the  village  of  Lexington,  is  the  true  scene  of  the 
earliest  and  greatest  deeds  of  the  men  of  Boston.  The 
monument  at  Bunker  Hill  stands  high  and  commands  at- 
tention, while  those  at  Lexington  and  Concord  are  very 
lowly  and  command  no  attention.  But  it  is  of  that  road 
and  what  was  done  on  it  that  Massachusetts  should  be 
proud.  When  the  colonists  first  began  to  feel  that  they 
were  oppressed,  and  a  half  resolve  was  made  to  resist  that 
oppression  by  force,  they  began  to  collect  a  few  arms  and  some 
gunpowder  at  Concord,  a  small  town  about  eighteen  miles 


CONCORD. 


25t 


from  Boston.  Of  this  preparation  the  English  governor 
received  tidings,  and  determined  to  send  a  party  of  soldiers 
to  seize  the  arms.  This  he  endeavored  to  do  secretly ;  but 
he  was  too  closely  watched,  and  word  was  sent  down  over 
the  waters  by  which  Boston  was  then  surrounded  that  the 
colonists  might  be  prepared  for  the  soldiers.  At  that  time 
Boston  Neck,  as  it  was,  and  is  still  called,  was  the  only 
connection  between  the  town  and  the  main-land,  and  the 
road  over  Boston  Neck  did  not  lead  to  Concord.  Boats 
therefore  were  necessarily  used,  and  there  was  some  diffi- 
culty in  getting  the  soldiers  to  the  nearest  point.  They 
made  their  way,  however,  to  the  road,  and  continued  their 
route  as  far  as  Lexington  without  interruption.  Here, 
however,  they  were  attacked,  and  the  first  blood  of  that 
war  was  shed.  They  shot  three  or  four  of  the — rebels,  I 
suppose  I  should  in  strict  language  call  them,  and  then 
proceeded  on  to  Concord.  But  at  Concord  they  were 
stopped  and  repulsed,  and  along  the  road  back  from 
Concord  to  Lexington  they  were  driven  with  slaughter  and 
dismay.  And  thus  the  rebellion  was  commenced  which  led 
to  the  establishment  of  a  people  which,  let  us  Englishmen 
say  and  think  what  we  may  of  them  at  this  present  moment, 
has  made  itself  one  of  the  five  great  nations  of  the  earth, 
and  has  enabled  us  to  boast  that  the  two  out  of  the  five 
who  enjoy  the  greatest  liberty  and  the  widest  prosperity 
speak  the  English  language  and  are  known  by  English 
names.  For  all  that  has  come  and  is  like  to  come,  I  say 
again,  long  may  that  honor  remain.  I  could  not  but  feel 
that  that  road  from  Boston  to  Concord  deserves  a  name  in 
the  world's  history  greater,  perhaps,  than  has  yet  been 
given  to  it. 

Concord  is  at  present  to  be  noted  as  the  residence  of  Mr. 
Emerson  and  of  Mr.  Hawthorne,  two  of  those  mnny  men 
of  letters  of  Tvdiose  presence  Boston  and  its  neighborhood 
have  reason  to  be  proud.  Of  Mr.  Emerson  I  have  already 
spoken.  The  author  of  the  "Scarlet  Letter"  I  regard  as 
certainly  the  first  of  American  novelists.  I  know  what 
men  will  say  of  Mr.  Cooper, — and  I  also  am  an  admirer  of 
Cooper's  novels.  But  I  cannot  think  that  Mr.  Cooper's 
powers  were  equal  to  those  of  Mr.  Hawthorne,  though  his 
mode  of  thought  may  have  been  more  genial,  and  his  choice 
of  subjects  more  attractive  in  their  day.  In  point  of  im- 
agination, v/hich,  after  all,  is  the  novelist's  greatest  gift,  I 

22* 


258 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


hardly  know  any  living  author  who  can  be  accounted  supe- 
rior to  Mr.  Hawthorne. 

Very  much  has,  undoubtedly,  been  done  in  Boston  to 
carry  out  that  theory  of  Colonel  Newcome  s  —  Emollil 
mores,  by  which  the  Colonel  meant  to  signify  his  opinion 
that  a  competent  knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  arith- 
metic, with  a  taste  for  enjoying  those  accomplishments, 
goes  very  far  toward  the  making  of  a  man,  and  will  by  no 
means  mar  a  gentleman.  In  Boston  nearly  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  has  had  his  or  her  manners  so  far  soft- 
ened ;  and  though  they  may  still  occasionally  be  somewhat 
rough  to  the  outer  touch,  the  inward  effect  is  plainly  visible. 
With  us,  especially  among  our  agricultural  population,  the 
absence  of  that  inner  softening  is  as  visible. 

I  went  to  see  a  public  library  in  the  city,  which,  if  not 
founded  by  Mr.  Bates,  whose  name  is  so  well  known  in 
London  as  connected  with  the  house  of  Messrs.  Baring, 
has  been  greatly  enriched  by  him.  It  is  by  his  money  that 
it  has  been  enabled  to  do  its  work.  In  this  library  there  is 
a  certain  number  of  thousands  of  volumes — a  great  many 
volumes,  as  there  are  in  most  public  libraries.  There  are 
books  of  all  classes,  from  ponderous  unreadable  folios,  of 
which  learned  men  know  the  title-pages,  down  to  the  light- 
est literature.  Novels  are  by  no  means  eschewed, — are 
rather,  if  I  understood  aright,  considered  as  one  of  the 
staples  of  the  library.  From  this  library  any  book,  except- 
ing such  rare  volumes  as  in  all  libraries  are  considered 
holy,  is  given  out  to  any  inhabitant  of  Boston,  without  any 
payment,  on  presentation  of  a  simple  request  on  a  prepared 
form.  In  point  of  fact,  it  is  a  gratuitous  circulating  library 
open  to  all  Boston,  rich  or  poor,  young  or  old.  The  books 
seemed  in  general  to  be  confided  to  young  children,  who 
came  as  messengers  from  their  fathers  and  mothers,  or 
brothers  and  sisters.  No  question  whatever  is  asked,  if  the 
applicant  is  known  or  the  place  of  his  residence  undoubted. 
If  there  be  no  such  knowledge,  or  there  be  any  doubt  as  to 
the  residence,  the  applicant  is  questioned,  the  object  being 
to  confine  the  use  of  the  library  to  the  bona  fide  inhabit- 
ants of  the  city.  Practically  the  books  are  given  to  those 
who  ask  for  them,  whoever  they  may  be.  Boston  contain- 
over  200,000  inhabitants,  and  all  those  200,000  are  entitled 
to  them.  Some  twenty  men  and  women  are  kept  employed 
from  morning  till  night  in  carrying  on  this  circulating 


BOSTON  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 


259 


library;  and  there  is,  moreover,  attached  to  the  establish- 
ment a  large  reading-room  supplied  with  papers  and  maga- 
zines, open  to  the  public  of  Boston  on  the  same  terms. 

Of  course  I  asked  whether  a  great  many  of  the  books 
were  not  lost,  stolen,  and  destroyed ;  and  of  course  I  was 
told  that  there  were  no  losses,  no  thefts,  and  no  destruction. 
As  to  thefts,  the  librarian  did  not  seem  to  think  that  any  in- 
stance of  such  an  occurrence  could  be  found.  Among  the 
poorer  classes,  a  book  might  sometimes  be  lost  when  they 
were  changing  their  lodgings  ;  but  anything  so  lost  was 
more  than  replaced  by  the  fines.  A  book  is  taken  out  for 
a  week,  and  if  not  brought  back  at  the  end  of  that  week — . 
when  the  loan  can  be  renewed  if  the  reader  wishes — a  fine, 
I  think  of  two  cents,  is  incurred.  The  children,  when  too 
late  with  the  books,  bring  in  the  two  cents  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  the  sum  so  collected  fully  replaces  all  losses.  It 
was  all  couleur  de  rose;  the  librarianesses  looked  very 
pretty  and  learned,  and,  if  I  remember  aright,  mostly  wore 
spectacles  ;  the  head  librarian  was  enthusiastic  ;  the  nice, 
instructive  books  were  properly  dogs-eared  ;  my  own  pro- 
ductions were  in  enormous  demand ;  the  call  for  books 
over  the  counter  was  brisk  ;  and  the  reading-room  was  full 
of  readers. 

It  has,  I  dare  say,  occurred  to  other  travelers  to  remark 
that  the  proceedings  at  such  institutions,  when  visited  by 
them  on  their  travels,  are  always  rose  colored.  It  is  natu- 
ral that  the  bright  side  should  be  shown  to  the  visitor.  It 
may  be  that  many  books  are  called  for  and  returned  unread ; 
that  many  of  those  taken  out  are  so  taken  by  persons  who 
ought  to  pay  for  their  novels  at  circulating  libraries ;  that 
the  librarian  and  librarianesses  get  very  tired  of  their  long 
hours  of  attendance,  for  I  found  that  they  were  very  long ; 
and  that  many  idlers  warm  themselves  in  that  reading-room. 
Nevertheless  the  fact  remains— the  library  is  public^to  all  the 
men  and  women  in  Boston,  and  books  are  given  out  without 
payment  to  all  who  may  choose  to  ask  for  them.  Why 
should  not  the  great  Mr.  Mudie  emulate  Mr.  Bates,  and 
open  a  library  in  London  on  the  same  system  ? 

The  librarian  took  me  into  one  special  room,  of  which 
he  himself  kept  the  key,  to  show  me  a  present  which  the 
library  had  received  from  the  English  government.  The 
room  was  filled  with  volumes  of  two  sizes,  all  bound  alike, 
containing  descriptions  and  drawings  of  all  the  patents 


260 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


taken  out  in  England.  According  to  this  librarian,  such  a 
work  would  be  invaluable  as  to  American  patents ;  but  he 
conceived  that  the  subject  had  become  too  confused  to  ren- 
der any  such  an  undertaking  possible.  "  I  never  allow  a 
single  volume  to  be  used  for  a  moment  without  the  presence 
of  myself  or  one  of  my  assistants,"  said  the  librarian  ;  and 
then  he  explained  to  me,  when  I  asked  him  why  he  was  so 
particular,  that  the  drawings  would,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
be  cut  out  and  stolen  if  he  omitted  his  care.  "  But  they 
may  be  copied,"  I  said,  "Yes  ;  but  if  Jones  merely  copies 
one.  Smith  may  come  after  him  and  copy  it  also.  Jones 
will  probably  desire  to  hinder  Smith  from  having  any  evi- 
dence of  such  a  patent."  As  to  the  ordinary  borrowing  and 
returning  of  books,  the  poorest  laborer's  child  in  Boston 
might  be  trusted  as  honest ;  but  when  a  question  of  trade 
came  up — of  commercial  competition — then  the  librarian 
was  bound  to  bethink  himself  that  his  countrymen  are  very 
smart.  "I  hope,"  said  the  librarian,  "you  will  let  them 
know  in  England  how  grateful  we  are  for  their  present." 
And  I  hereby  execute  that  librarian's  commission. 

I  shall  always  look  back  to  social  life  in  Boston  with 
great  pleasure.  I  met  there  many  men  and  women  whom 
to  know  is  a  distinction,  and  with  whom  to  be  intimate  is  a 
great  delight.  It  was  a  Puritan  city,  in  which  strict  old 
Roundhead  sentiments  and  laws  used  to  prevail ;  but  now- 
a-days  ginger  is  hot  in  the  mouth  there,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
war,  there  were  cakes  and  ale.  There  was  a  law  passed  in 
Massachusetts  in  the  old  days  that  any  girl  sliould  be  fined 
and  imprisoned  who  allowed  a  young  man  to  kiss  her.  That 
law  has  now,  I  think,  fallen  into  abeyance,  and  such  mat- 
ters are  regulated  in  Boston  much  as  they  are  in  other  large 
towns  farther  eastward.  It  still,  I  conceive,  calls  itself  a 
Puritan  city  ;  but  it  has  divested  its  Puritanism  of  auster- 
ity, and  clings  rather  to  the  politics  and  public  bearing  of 
its  old  fathers  than  to  their  social  manners  and  pristine  se- 
verity of  intercourse.  The  young  girls  are,  no  doubt,  much 
more  comfortable  under  the  new  dispensation  —  and  the 
elderly  men  also,  as  I  fancy.  Sunday,  as  regards  the  outer 
streets,  is  sabbatical.  But  Sunday  evenings  within  doors  I 
always  found  to  be  what  my  friends  in  that  country  call 
"quite  a  good  time."  It  is  not  the  thing  in  Boston  to 
smoke  in  the  streets  during  the  day;  but  the  vrisest,  the 
sagest,  and  the  most  holy — even  those  holy  men  whom  the 


SOCIETY  IN  BOSTON. 


261 


lecturer  saw  around  him  —  seldom  refuse  a  cigar  in  the 
dining-room  as  soon  as  tlie  ladies  have  gone.  Perhaps 
even  the  wicked  weed  would  make  its  appearance  before 
that  sad  eclipse,  thereby  postponing  or  perhaps  absolutely 
annihilating  the  melancholy  period  of  widowhood  to  both 
parties,  and  would  light  itself  under  the  very  eyes  of  those 
who  in  sterner  cities  will  lend  no  countenance  to  such  light- 
ings. Ah  me,  it  was  very  pleasant !  I  confess  I  like  this 
abandonment  of  the  stricter  rules  of  the  more  decorous 
world.  I  fear  that  there  is  within  me  an  aptitude  to  the 
milder  debaucheries  which  makes  such  deviations  pleasant. 
I  like  to  drink  and  I  like  to  smoke,  but  I  do  not  like  to 
turn  women  out  of  the  room.  Then  comes  the  question 
whether  one  can  have  all  that  one  likes  together.  In  some 
small  circles  in  New  England  I  found  people  simple  enough 
to  fancy  that  they  could.  In  Massachusetts  the  Maine 
liquor  law  is  still  the  law  of  the  land,  but,  like  that  other 
law  to  which  I  have  alluded,  it  has  fallen  very  much  out  of 
use.  At  any  rate,  it  had  not  reached  the  houses  of  the 
gentlemen  with  whom  I  had  the  pleasure  of  making  ac- 
quaintance. But  here  I  must  guard  myself  from  being 
misunderstood.  I  saw  but  one  drunken  man  through  all 
New  England,  and  he  was  very  respectable.  He  was,  how- 
ever, so  uncommonly  drunk  that  he  might  be  allowed  to 
count  for  two  or  three.  The  Puritans  of  Boston  are,  of 
course,  simple  in  their  habits  and  simple  in  their  expenses. 
Champagne  and  canvas-back  ducks  I  found  to  be  the  pro- 
visions most  in  vogue  among  those  who  desired  to  adhere 
closely  to  the  manner  of  their  forefathers.  Upon  the  whole, 
I  found  the  ways  of  life  which  had  been  brought  over  in 
the  "  Mayflower"  from  the  stern  sects  of  England,  and  pre- 
served through  the  revolutionary  war  for  liberty,  to  be  very 
pleasant  ways ;  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  a  Yankee  Pu- 
ritan can  be  an  uncommonly  pleasant  fellow.  I  wish  that 
some  of  them  did  not  dine  so  early ;  for  when  a  man  sits 
down  at  half-past  two,  that  keeping  up  of  the  after-dinner 
recreations  till  bedtime  becomes  hard  work. 

In  Boston  the  houses  are  very  spacious  and  excellent,  and 
they  are  always  furnished  with  those  luxuries  which  it  is  so  dif- 
ficult to  introduce  into  an  old  house.  They  have  hot  and  cold 
water  pipes  into  every  room,  and  baths  attached  to 'the  bed- 
chambers. It  is  not  only  that  comfort  is  increased  by  such 
arrangements,  but  that  much  labor  is  saved.  In  an  old  English 


2C2 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


house  it  will  occupy  a  servant  the  best  part  of  the  day  to 
carry  water  up  and  down  for  a  large  family.  Everything 
also  is  spacious,  commodious,  and  well  lighted.  I  certainly 
think  that  in  house-building  the  Americans  have  gone  be- 
yond us,  for  even  our  new  houses  are  not  commodious  as 
are  theirs.  One  practice  which  they  have  in  their  cities 
would  hardly  suit  our  limited  London  spaces.  When  the 
body  of  the  house  is  built,  they  throw  out  the  dining-room 
behind.  It  stands  alone,  as  it  were,  with  no  other  chamber 
above  it,  and  removed  from  the  rest  of  the  house.  It  is 
consequently  behind  the  double  drawing-rooms  which  form 
the  ground  floor,  and  is  approached  from  them  and  also 
from  the  back  of  the  hall.  The  second  entrance  to  the 
dining-room  is  thus  near  the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairs,  which 
no  doubt  is  its  proper  position.  The  whole  of  the  upper 
part  of  the  house  is  thus  kept  for  the  private  uses  of  the 
family.  To  me  this  plan  of  building  recommended  itself  as 
being  very  commodious. 

I  found  the  spirit  for  the  war  quite  as  hot  at  Boston  now 
(in  November)  if  not  hotter  than  it  was  when  I  was  there 
ten  weeks  earlier;  and  I  found  also,  to  my  grief,  that  the 
feeling  against  England  was  as  strong.  I  can  easily  under- 
stand how  difficult  it  must  have  been,  and  still  must  be,  to 
Englishmen  at  home  to  understand  this,  and  see  how  it  has 
come  to  pass.  It  has  not  arisen,  as  I  think,  from  the  old 
jealousy  of  England.  It  has  not  sprung  from  that  source 
which  for  years  has  induced  certain  newspapers,  especially 
the  New  York  Herald,  to  vilify  England.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  men  of  New  England  have  ever  been,  as  regards 
this  matter,  in  the  same  boat  with  the  New  York  EeraJd. 
But  when  this  war  between  the  North  and  South  first  broke 
out,  even  before  there  was  as  yet  a  war,  the  Northern  men 
had  taught  themselves  to  expect  what  they  called  British 
sympathy,  meaning  British  encouragement.  They  regarded, 
and  properly  regarded,  the  action  of  the  South  as  a  rebel- 
lion, and  said  among  themselves  that  so  staid  and  conser- 
vative a  nation  as  Great  Britain  would  surely  countenance 
them  in  quelling  rebels.  If  not,  should  it  come  to  pass 
that  Great  Britain  should  show  no  such  countenance  and 
sympathy  for  Northern  law,  if  Great  Britain  did  not  re- 
spond to  her  friend  as  she  was  expected  to  respond,  then 
it  would  appear  that  cotton  was  king,  at  least  in  British 
eyes.    The  war  did  come,  and  Great  Britain  regarded  the 


CAPTURE  OF  SLIDELL  AND  MASON. 


263 


two  parties  as  belligerents,  standing,  as  far  as  she  was  con- 
cerned, on  equal  grounds.  This  it  was  that  first  gave  rise 
to  that  fretful  anger  against  England  which  has  gone  so  far 
toward  ruining  the  Northern  cause.  We  know  how  such 
passions  are  swelled  by  being  ventilated,  and  how  they  are 
communicated  from  miud  to  mind  till  they  become  national. 
Politicians — American  politicians  I  here  mean — have  their 
own  future  careers  ever  before  their  eyes,  and  are  driven  to 
make  capital  where  they  can.  Hence  it  is  that  such  men  as 
Mr.  Seward  in  the  cabinet,  and  Mr.  Everett  out  of  it,  can 
reconcile  it  to  themselves  to  speak  as  they  have  done  of 
England.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  Mr.  Everett  spoke, 
in  one  of  his  orations,  of  the  hope  that  still  existed  that  the 
flag  of  the  United  States  might  still  float  over  the  whole 
continent  of  North  America.  What  would  he  say  of  an 
English  statesman  who  should  speak  of  putting  up  the 
Union  Jack  on  the  State  House  in  Boston  ?  Such  words 
tell  for  the  moment  on  the  hearers,  and  help  to  gain  some 
slight  popularity ;  but  they  tell  for  more  than  a  moment 
on  those  who  read  them  and  remember  them. 

And  then  came  the  capture  of  Messrs.  Slidell  and  Mason. 
I  was  at  Boston  when  those  men  were  taken  out  of  the 
"Trent"  by  the  "San  Jacinto,"  and  brought  to  Fort  War- 
ren in  Boston  Harbor.  Captain  Wilkes  was  the  officer 
who  had  made  the  capture,  and  he  immediately  was  recog- 
nized as  a  hero.  He  was  invited  to  banquets  and  feted. 
Speeches  were  made  to  him  as  speeches  are  commonly  made 
to  high  officers  who  come  home,  after  many  perils,  victorious 
from  the  wars.  His  health  was  drunk  with  great  applause, 
and  thanks  were  voted  to  him  by  one  of  the  Houses  of 
Congress.  It  was  said  that  a  sword  was  to  be  given  to 
him,  but  I  do  not  think  that  the  gift  was  consummated. 
Should  it  not  have  been  a  policeman's  truncheon  ?  Had 
he  at  the  best  done  anything  beyond  a  policeman's  work  ? 
Of  Captain  Wilkes  no  one  would  complain  for  doing  police- 
man's duty.  If  his  country  were  satisfied  with  the  manner 
in  which  he  did  it,  England,  if  she  quarreled  at  all,  would 
not  quarrel  with  him.  It  may  now  and  again  become  the 
duty  of  a  brave  officer  to  do  work  of  so  low  a  caliber.  It 
is  a  pity  that  an  ambitious  sailor  should  find  himself  told 
off  for  so  mean  a  task,  but  the  world  would  know  that  it  is 
not  his  fault.  No  one  could  blame  Captain  Wilkes  for  act- 
ing policeman  on  the  seas.    But  who  ever  before  heard  of 


264 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


giving  a  mau  glory  for  achievements  so  little  glorious? 
How  Captain  AVilkes  must  have  blushed  when  those 
speeches  were  made  to  him,  when  that  talk  about  the  sword 
came  up,  when  the  thanks  arrived  to  him  from  Congress  I 
An  officer  receives  his  country's  thanks  when  he  has  been 
in  great  peril,  and  has  borne  himself  gallantly  through  his 
danger;  when  he  has  endured  the  brunt  of  war,  and  come 
through  it  with  victory;  when  he  has  exposed  himself  on 
behalf  of  his  country  and  singed  his  epaulets  with  an 
enemy's  fire.  Captain  Wilkes  tapped  a  merchantman  on 
the  shoulder  in  the  high  seas,  and  told  him  that  his  passen- 
gers were  wanted.  In  doing  this  he  showed  no  lack  of 
spirit,  for  it  might  be  his  duty ;  but  where  was  his  spirit 
when  he  submitted  to  be  thanked  for  such  work  ? 

And  then  there  arose  a  clamor  of  justification  among  the 
lawyers;  judges  and  ex-judges  flew  to  Wheaton,  Thilli- 
more,  and  Lord  Stowell.  Before  twenty-four  hours  were 
over,  ever}^  man  and  every  woman  in  Boston  were  armed 
with  precedents.  Then  there  was  the  burning  of  the 
"Caroline."  England  had  improperly  burned  the  "Caro- 
line" on  Lake  Erie,  or  rather  in  one  of  the  American 
ports  on  Lake  Erie,  and  had  then  begged  pardon.  If  the 
States  had  been  wrong,  they  would  beg  pardon;  but 
whether  wrong  or  right,  they  would  not  give  up  Slidell 
and  Mason.  But  the  lawyers  soon  waxed  stronger.  The 
men  were  manifestly  ambassadors,  and  as  such  contraband 
of  war.  Wilkes  was  quite  right,  only  he  should  have 
seized  the  vessel  also.  He  was  quite  right,  for  though 
Slidell  and  Mason  might  not  be  ambassadors,  they  were 
undoubtedly  carrying  dispatches.  In  a  few  hours  there 
began  to  be  a  doubt  whether  the  men  could  be  ambas- 
sadors, because  if  called  ambassadors,  then  the  power  that 
sent  the  embassy  must  be  presumed  to  be  recognized.  That 
Captain  Wilkes  had  taken  no  dispatches,  was  true ;  but  the 
captain  suggested  a  way  out  of  this  difficulty  by  declaring 
that  he  had  regarded  the  two  men  themselves  as  an  incar- 
nated embodiment  of  dispatches.  At  any  rate,  they  were 
clearly  contraband  of  war.  They  were  going  to  do  an  in- 
jury to  the  North.  It  was  pretty  to  hear  the  charming 
women  of  Boston,  as  they  became  learned  in  the  law  of 
nations  :  ''Wheaton  is  quite  clear  about  it,"  one  young  girl 
said  to  me.  It  was  the  first  I  had  ever  heard  of  Wheaton, 
and  so  far  was  obliged  to  knock  under.    All  the  world, 


CAPTURE  OP  SLIDELL  AND  MASON.  2G5 

ladies  and  laVyers,  expressed  the  utmost  confidence  in  the 
justice  of  the  seizure ;  but  it  was  clear  that  all  the  world 
was  in  a  state  of  the  profoundest  nervous  anxiety  on  the 
subject.  To  me  it  seemed  to  be  the  most  suicidal  act  that 
any  party  in  a  life-and-death  struggle  ever  committed.  All 
Americans  on  both  sides  had  feit,  from  tlie  beginning  of 
the  war,  that  any  assistance  given  by  England  to  one  or 
the  other  would  turn  the  scale.  The  government  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  must  have  learned  by  this  time  that  England  was 
at  least  true  in  her  neutrality;  that  no  desire  for  cotton 
would  compel  her  to  give  aid  to  the  South  as  long  as  she 
herself  was  not  ill  treated  by  the  North.  But  it  seemed 
as  though  Mr.  Seward,  the  President's  Prime  Minister,  had 
no  better  work  on  hand  than  that  of  showing  in  every  way 
his  indifference  as  to  courtesy  with  England.  Insults  of- 
fered to  England  would,  he  seemed  to  think,  strengthen  his 
hands.  He  would  let  England  know  that  he  did  not  care 
for  her.  When  our  minister,  Lord  Lyons,  appealed  to 
him  regarding  the  suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus,  Mr. 
Seward  not  only  answered  him  with  insolence,  but  instantly 
published  his  answer  in  the  papers.  He  instituted  a  sys- 
tem of  passports,  especially  constructed  so  as  to  incom- 
mode Englishmen  proceeding  from  the  States  across  the 
Atlantic.  He  resolved  to  make  every  Englishman  in  Amer- 
ica feel  himself  in  some  way  punished,  because  England  had 
not  assisted  the  Xorth.  And  now  came  the  arrest  of  Slidell 
and  Mason  out  of  an  English  mail  steamer,  and  Mr.  Seward 
took  care  to  let  it  be  understood  that,  happen  what  might, 
those  two  men  should  not  be  given  up. 

Nothing  during  all  this  time  astonished  me  so  much  as 
the  estimation  in  which  Mr.  Seward  was  then  held  by  his 
own  party.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  worst  defect  in  the  consti- 
tution of  the  States,  that  no  incapacity  on  the  part  of  a 
minister,  no  amount  of  condemnation  expressed  against  him 
by  the  people  or  by  Congress,  can  put  him  out  of  office 
during  the  term  of  the  existing  Presidency.  The  President 
can  dismiss  him  ;  but  it  generally  happens  that  the  President 
is  brought  in  on  a  "  platform"  which  has  already  nominated 
for  him  his  cabinet  as  thoroughly  as  they  have  nominated 
him.  Mr.  Seward  ran  Mr.  Lincoln  very  hard  for  the  posi- 
tion of  candidate  for  the  Presidency  on  the  Republican  in- 
terest. On  the  second  voting  of  the  Republican  delegates 
at  the  Convention  at  Chicago,  Mr.  Seward  polled  184  to 

23 


266 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


Mr.  Lincoln's  181.  But  as  a  clear  half  of  the  total  number 
of  votes  was  necessary — that  is,  233  out  of  4G5 — there  was 
necessarily  a  third  polling,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  won  the  day. 
On  that  occasion  Mr.  Chase  and  Mr.  Cameron,  both  of 
whom  became  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  cabinet,  were  also 
candidates  for  the  White  House  on  the  Republican  side.  I 
mention  this  here  to  show  that  though  the  President  can  in 
fact  dismiss  his  ministers,  he  is  in  a  great  manner  bound  to 
them,  and  that  a  minister  in  Mr.  Seward's  position  is  hardly 
to  be  dismissed.  But  from  the  1st  of  November,  1861,  till 
the  day  on  which  1  left  the  States,  I  do  not  think  that  I 
heard  a  good  word  spoken  of  Mr.  Seward  as  a  minister, 
even  by  one  of  his  own  party.  The  Radical  or  Abolitionist 
Republicans  all  abused  him.  The  Conservative  or  Anti- 
abolition  Republicans,  to  whose  party  he  would  consider 
himself  as  belonging,  spoke  of  him  as  a  mistake.  He  had 
been  prominent  as  Senator  from  New  York,  and  had  been 
Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York,  but  had  none  of  the 
aptitudes  of  a  statesman.  He  was  there,  and  it  was  a  pity. 
He  was  not  so  bad  as  Mr.  Cameron,  the  Minister  for  War; 
that  was  the  best  his  own  party  could  say  for  him,  even  in 
his  own  State  of  New  York.  As  to  the  Democrats,  their 
language  respecting  him  was  as  harsh  as  any  that  I  have 
heard  used  toward  the  Southern  leaders.  He  seemed  to 
have  no  friends,  no  one  who  trusted  him ;  and  yet  he  was 
the  President's  chief  minister,  and  seemed  to  have  in  his 
own  hands  the  power  of  mismanaging  all  foreign  relations 
as  he  pleased.  But,  in  truth,  the  States  of  America,  great 
as  they  are,  and  much  as  they  have  done,  have  not  produced 
statesmen.  That  theory  of  governing  by  the  little  men 
rather  than  by  the  great  has  not  been  found  to  answer, 
and  such  follies  as  those  of  Mr.  Seward  have  been  the 
consequence. 

At  Boston,  and  indeed  elsewhere,  I  found  that  there  was 
even  then — at  the  time  of  the  capture  of  these  two  men — no 
true  conception  of  the  neutrality  of  England  with  reference 
to  the  two  parties.  When  any  argument  was  made,  show- 
ing that  England,  who  had  carried  these  messengers  from 
the  South,  would  undoubtedly  have  also  carried  messengers 
from  the  North,  the  answer  always  was — "But  the  South- 
erners are  all  rebels.  Will  England  regard  us  who  are  by 
treaty  her  friend,  as  she  does  a  people  that  is  in  rebellion 
against  its  own  government  ?"   That  was  the  old  story  over 


CAPTURE  OP  SLIDELL  AND  MASON. 


207 


again,  and  as  it  was  a  very  long  story,  it  was  hardly  of  use 
to  go  back  through  all  its  details.  But  the  fact  was  that 
unless  there  had  been  such  absolute  neutrality — such  equality 
between  the  parties  in  the  eyes  of  England — even  Captain 
Wilkes  would  not  have  thought  of  stopping  the  "  Trent,"  or 
the  government  at  Washington  of  justifying  such  a  proceed- 
ing. And  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  government  at 
Washington  had  justified  that  proceeding.  The  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  had  distinctly  done  so  in  his  official  report ; 
and  that  report  had  been  submitted  to  the  President  and 
published  by  his  order.  It  was  because  England  was  neu- 
tral between  the  North  and  South  that  Captain  Wilkes 
claimed  to  have  the  right  of  seizing  those  two  men.  It  had 
been  the  President's  intention,  some  month  or  so  before  this 
affair,  to  send  Mr.  Everett  and  other  gentlemen  over  to 
England  with  objects  as  regards  the  North  similar  to  those 
which  had  caused  the  sending  of  Slidell  and  Mason  with 
reference  to  the  South.  What  would  Mr.  Everett  have 
thought  had  he  been  refused  a  passage  from  Dover  to 
Calais,  because  the  carrying  of  him  would  have  been  toward 
the  South  a  breach  of  neutrality  ?  It  would  never  have 
occurred  to  him  that  he  could  become  subject  to  such  stop- 
page. How  should  we  have  been  abused  for  Southern  sym- 
pathies had  we  so  acted  !  We,  forsooth,  who  carry  pas- 
sengers about  the  world,  from  China  and  Australia,  round 
to  Chili  and  Peru,  who  have  the  charge  of  the  world's  pas- 
sengers and  letters,  and  as  a  nation  incur  out  of  our  pocket 
annually  a  loss  of  some  half  million  of  pounds  sterling  for 
the  privilege  of  doing  so,  are  to  inquire  the  business  of  every 
American  traveler  before  we  let  him  on  board,  and  be 
stopped  in  our  work  if  we  take  anybody  on  one  side  whose 
journeyings  may  be  conceived  by  the  other  side  to  be  to 
them  prejudicial !  Not  on  such  terms  will  Englishmen  be 
willing  to  spread  civilization  across  the  ocean  !  I  do  not 
pretend  to  understand  Wheaton  and  Phillimore,  or  even  to 
have  read  a  single  word  of  any  international  law.  I  have 
refused  to  read  any  such,  knowing  that  it  would  only  con- 
fuse and  mislead  me.  But  I  have  my  common  sense  to 
guide  me.  Two  men  living  in  one  street,  quarrel  and  shy 
brickbats  at  each  other,  and  make  the  whole  street  very  un- 
comfortable. Not  only  is  no  one  to  interfere  with  them, 
but  they  are  to  have  the  privilege  of  deciding  that  their 
brickbats  have  the  right  of  way,  rather  than  the  ordinary 


268 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


intercourse  of  the  neighborhood  !  If  that  be  national  law, 
national  law  must  be  changed.  It  might  do  for  some  centu- 
ries back,  but  it  cannot  do  now.  Up  to  this  period  my 
sympathies  had  been  with  the  North.  I  thought,  and  still 
think,  that  the  North  had  no  alternative,  that  the  war  had  been 
forced  upon  them,  and  that  they  had  gone  about  their  work 
with  patriotic  energy.  But  this  stopping  of  an  English 
mail  steamer  was  too  much  for  me. 

What  will  they  do  in  England  ?  was  now  the  question. 
But  for  any  knowledge  as  to  that  I  had  to  wait  till  I  reached 
Washington. 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

CAMRRIDGE  AND  LOWELL. 

The  two  places  of  most  general  interest  in  the  vicinity 
of  Boston  are  Cambridge  and  Lowell.  Cambridge  is  to 
Massachusetts,  and,  I  may  almost  say,  is  to  all  the  Northern 
States,  what  Cambridge  and  Oxford  are  to  England.  It  is 
the  seat  of  the  university  which  gives  the  highest  education 
to  be  attained  by  the  highest  classes  in  that  country.  Lowell 
also  is  in  little  to  Massachusetts  and  to  New  England  what 
Manchester  is  to  us  in  so  great  a  degree.  It  is  the  largest 
and  most  prosperous  cotton-manufacturing  town  in  the 
States. 

Cambridge  is  not  above  three  or  four  miles  from  Boston. 
Indeed,  the  town  of  Cambridge  properly  so  called  begins 
where  Boston  ceases.  The  Harvard  College — that  is  its 
name,  taken  from  one  of  its  original  founders — is  reached 
by  horse-cars  in  twenty  minutes  from  the  city.  An  English- 
man feels  inclined  to  regard  the  place  as  a  suburb  of  Boston  ; 
but  if  he  so  expresses  himself,  he  will  not  find  favor  in  the 
eyes  of  the  men  of  Cambridge. 

The  university  is  not  so  large  as  I  had  expected  to  find 
it.  It  consists  of  Harvard  College,  as  the  undergraduates' 
department,  and  of  professional  schools  of  law,  medicine, 


HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

divinity,  and  science.  In  the  few  words  that  I  will  say 
about  it  I  will  confine  myself  to  Harvard  College  proper, 
conceiving  that  the  professional  schools  connected  with  it 
have  not  in  themselves  any  special  interest.  The  average 
number  of  undergraduates  does  not  exceed  450,  and  these 
are  divided  into  four  classes.  The  average  number  of  de- 
grees taken  annually  by  bachelors  of  art  is  something  under 
100.  Four  years'  residence  is  required  for  a  degree,  and  at 
the  end  of  that  period  a  degree  is  given  as  a  matter  of 
course  if  the  candidate's  conduct  has  been  satisfactory. 
When  a  young  man  has  pursued  his  studies  for  that  period, 
going  through  the  required  examinations  and  lectures,  he 
is  not  subjected  to  any  final  examination  as  is  the  case  with 
a  candidate  for  a  degree  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  It  is, 
perhaps,  in  this  respect  that  the  greatest  difference  exists 
between  the  English  universities  and  Harvard  College. 
With  us  a  young  man  may,  I  take  it,  still  go  through  his 
three  or  four  years  with  a  small  amount  of  study.  But  his 
doing  so  does  not  insure  him  his  degree.  If  he  have 
utterly  wasted  his  time  he  is  plucked,  and  late  but  heavy 
punishment  comes  upon  him.  At  Cambridge,  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  daily  work  of  the  men  is  made  more  obliga- 
tory; but  if  this  be  gone  through  with  such  diligence  as  to 
enable  the  student  to  hold  his  own  during  the  four  years, 
he  has  his  degree  as  a  matter  of  course.  There  are  no  de- 
grees conferring  special  honor.  A  man  cannot  go  out  "in 
honors"  as  he  does  with  us.  There  are  no  "firsts"  or 
"double  firsts;"  no  "wranglers;"  no  "senior  opts"  or 
"junior  opts."  Nor  are  there  prizes  of  fellowships  and 
livings  to  be  obtained.  It  is,  I  think,  evident  from  this 
that  the  greatest  incentives  to  high  excellence  are  wanting 
at  Harvard  College.  There  is  neither  the  rev/ard  of  honor 
nor  of  money.  There  is  none  of  that  great  competition 
which  exists  at  our  Cambridge  for  the  high  place  of  Senior 
Wrangler;  and,  consequently,  the  degree  of  excellence  at- 
tained is  no  doubt  lower  than  with  us.  But  I  conceive  that 
the  general  level  of  the  university  education  is  higher  there 
than  with  us;  that  a  young  man  is  more  sure  of  getting  his 
education,  and  that  a  smaller  percentage  of  men  leaves 
Harvard  College  utterly  uneducated  than  goes  in  that  con- 
dition out  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  The  education  at 
Harvard  College  is  more  diversified  in  its  nature,  and  study 

23* 


2t0  NORTH  AMERICA. 

is  more  absolutely  the  business  of  the  place  than  it  is  at  ou. 
universities. 

The  expense  of  education  at  Harvard  College  is  not 
much  lower  than  at  our  colleges;  with  us  there  are,  no 
doubt,  more  men  who  are  absolutely  extravagant  than  at 
Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  The  actual  authorized  expend- 
iture in  accordance  with  the  rules  is  only  501.  per  annum, 
i.e.  249  dollars;  but  this  does  not,  by  any  means,  include 
everything.  Some  of  the  richer  young  men  may  spend  as 
much  as  300Z.  per  annum,  but  the  largest  number  vary  their 
expenditure  from  lOOZ.  to  180Z.  per  annum;  and  I  take  it 
the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  our  universities.  There  are 
many  young  men  at  Harvard  College  of  very  small  means. 
They  will  live  on  tOZ.  per  annum,  and  will  earn  a  great 
portion  of  that  by  teaching  in  the  vacations.  There  are 
thirty-six  scholarships  attached  to  the  university,  varying  in 
value  from  201.  to  60Z.  per  annum;  and  there  is  also  a 
beneficiary  fund  for  supplying  poor  scholars  with  assistance 
during  their  collegiate  education.  Many  are  thus  brought 
up  at  Cambridge  who  have  no  means  of  their  own ;  and  I 
think  I  may  say  that  the  consideration  in  which  they  are 
held  among  their  brother  students  is  in  no  degree  affected 
by  their  position.  I  doubt  whether  we  can  say  so  much  of 
the  Sizars  and  Bible  clerks  at  our  universities. 

At  Harvard  College  there  is,  of  course,  none  of  that  old- 
fashioned,  time-honored,  delicious,  medieval  life  which  lends 
so  much  grace  and  beauty  to  our  colleges.  There  are  no 
gates,  no  porter's  lodges,  no  butteries,  no  halls,  no  battels, 
and  no  common  rooms.  There  are  no  proctors,  no  bull- 
dogs, no  bursers,  no  deans,  no  morning  and  evening  chapel, 
no  quads,  no  surplices,  no  caps  and  gowns.  I  have  already 
said  that  there  are  no  examinations  for  degrees  and  no 
honors ;  and  I  can  easily  conceive  that  in  the  absence  of  all 
these  essentials  many  an  Englishman  will  ask  what  right 
Harvard  College  has  to  call  itself  a  university. 

I  have  said  that  there  are  no  honors,  and  in  our  sense 
there  are  none.  But  I  should  give  offense  to  my  American 
friends  if  I  did  not  explain  that  there  are  prizes  given — I 
think  all  in  money,  and  that  they  vary  from  fifty  to  ten  dol- 
lars. These  are  called  deiurs.  The  degrees  are  given  on 
Commencement  Day,  at  which  occasion  certain  of  the  ex- 
pectant graduates  are  selected  to  take  parts  in  a  public  lit- 
erary exhibition.  To  be  so  selected  seems  to  be  tantamount 


HABVARD  COLLEGE. 


2U 


to  taking  a  degree  in  honors.  There  is  also  a  dinner  on 
Commencement  Day,  at  which,  however,  "  no  wine  or  other 
intoxicating  drink  shall  be  served." 

It  is  required  that  every  student  shall  attend  some  place 
of  Christian  worship  on  Sundays;  but  he,  or  his  parents 
for  him,  may  elect  what  denomination  of  church  he  shall 
attend.  There  is  a  university  chapel  on  the  university  ^ 
grounds  which  belongs,  if  I  remember  aright,  to  the  Epis- 
copalian church.  The  young  men,  for  the  most  part,  live 
in  college,  having  rooms  in  the  college  buildings  ;  but  they 
do  not  board  in  those  rooms.  There  are  establishments  in 
the  town,  under  the  patronage  of  the  university,  at  which 
dinner,  breakfast,  and  supper  are  provided ;  and  the  young 
men  frequent  one  of  these  houses  or  another  as  they,  or  their 
friends  for  them,  may  arrange.  Every  young  man  not  be- 
longing to  a  family  resident  within  a  hundred  miles  of  Cam- 
bridge, and  whose  parents  are  desirous  to  obtain  the  protec- 
tion thus  provided,  is  placed,  as  regards  his  pecuniary 
management,  under  the  care  of  a  patron  ;  and  this  patron 
acts  by  him  as  a  father  does  in  England  by  a  boy  at  school. 
He  pays  out  his  money  for  him  and  keeps  him  out  of  debt. 
The  arrangement  will  not  recommend  itself  to  young  men 
at  Oxford  quite  so  powerfully  as  it  may  do  to  the  fathers 
of  some  young  men  who  have  been  there.  The  rules  with 
regard  to  the  lodging  and  boarding  houses  are  very  strin- 
gent. Any  festive  entertainment  is  to  be  reported  to  the 
president.  No  wine  or  spirituous  liquors  may  be  used,  etc. 
It  is  not  a  picturesque  system,  this  ;  but  it  has  its  advant- 
ages. 

There  is  a  handsome  library  attached  to  the  college  which 
the  young  men  can  use,  but  it  is  not  as  extensive  as  I  had 
expected.  The  university  is  not  well  off  for  funds  by  which 
to  increase  it.  The  new  museum  in  the  college  is  also  a 
handsome  building.  The  edifices  used  for  the  undergradu- 
ates' chambers  and  for  the  lecture-rooms  are  by  no  means 
handsome.  They  are  very  ugly,  red  brick  houses,  standing 
here  and  there  without  order.  There  are  seven  such  ;  and 
they  are  called  Brattle  House,  College  House,  Divinity 
Hall,  Hollis  Hall,  Holsworthy  Hall,  Massachusetts  Hall, 
and  Stoughton  Hall.  It  is  almost  astonishing  that  build- 
ings so  ugly  should  have  been  erected  for  such  a  purpose. 
These,  together  with  the  library,  the  museum,  and  the 
chapel,  stand  on  a  large  green,  which  might  be  made  pretty 


272 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


enough  if  it  were  kept,  well  mown,  like  the  gardens  of  our 
Cambridge  colleges ;  but  it  is  much  neglected.  Here,  again, 
the  want  of  funds — the  augusia  res  domi — must  be  pleaded 
as  an  excuse.  On  the  same  green,  but  at  some  little  dis- 
tance from  any  other  building,  stands  the  president's  pleasant 
house. 

The  immediate  direction  of  the  college  is  of  course  mainly 
in  the  hands  of  the  president,  who  is  supreme.  But  for  the 
general  management  of  the  institution  there  is  a  corpora- 
tion, of  which  he  is  one.  It  is  stated  in  the  laws  of  the 
university  that  the  Corporation  of  the  University  and  its 
Overseers  constitute  the  Government  of  the  University. 
The  Corporation  consists  of  the  President,  five  Fellows  so 
called,  and  a  Treasurer.  These  Fellows  are  chosen,  as 
vacancies  occur,  by  themselves,  subject  to  the  concurrence 
of  the  Overseers.  But  these  Fellows  are  in  nowise  like  to 
the  Fellows  of  oar  colleges,  having  no  salaries  attached  to 
their  offices.  The  Board  of  Overseers  consists  of  the  State 
Governor,  other  State  officers,  the  President  and  Treasurer 
of  Harvard  College,  and  thirty  other  persons,  men  of  note, 
chosen  by  vote.  The  Faculty  of  the  College,  in  which  is 
vested  the  immediate  care  and  government  of  the  under- 
graduates, is  composed  of  the  President  and  the  Professors. 
The  Professors  answer  to  the  tutors  of  our  colleges,  and 
upon  them  the  education  of  the  place  depends  I  cannot 
complete  this  short  notice  of  Harvard  College  without  say- 
ing that  it  is  happy  in  the  possession  of  that  distinguished 
natural  philosopher  Professor  Agassiz.  M.  Agassiz  has 
collected  at  Cambridge  a  museum  of  such  things  as  natural 
philosophers  delight  to  show,  which  I  am  told  is  all  but  in- 
valuable. As  my  ignorance  on  all  such  matters  is  of  a 
depth  which  the  professor  can  hardly  imagine,  and  which  it 
would  have  shocked  him  to  behold,  I  did  not  visit  the  mu- 
seum. Taking  the  University  of  Harvard  College  as  a  whole, 
I  should  say  that  it  is  most  remarkable  in  this — that  it  does 
really  give  to  its  pupils  that  education  which  it  professes  to 
give.  Of  our  own  universities  other  good  things  may  be 
said,  but  that  one  special  good  thing  cannot  always  be  said. 

Cambridge  boasts  itself  as  the  residence  of  four  or  five 
men  well  known  to  fame  on  the  American  and  also  on  the 
European  side  of  the  ocean.    President  Felton's*  name  is 


*  Since  these  words  were  written  President  Felton  has  died — I, 


LOWELL. 


2T3 


very  familiar  to  us ;  and  wherever  Greek  scholarship  is  held 
in  repute,  that  is  known.  So  also  is  the  name  of  Professor 
Agassiz,  of  whom  I  luive  spoken.  Russell  Lowell  is  one 
of  the  professors  of  the  college — that  llussell  Lowell  who 
sang  of  Birdofredum  Sawin,  and  whose  Biglow  Papers  were 
edited  with  such  an  ardor  of  love  by  our  Tom  Brown. 
Birdofredum  is  worthy  of  all  the  ardor.  Mr.  Dana  is  also 
a  Cambridge  man — he  who  was  ''two  years  before  the  mast," 
and  who  since  that  has  written  to  us  of  Cuba.  But  Mr. 
Dana,  though  residing  at  Cambridge,  is  not  of  Cambridge ; 
and,  though  a  literary  man,  he  does  not  belong  to  litera- 
ture. He  is — could  he  help  it? — a  "special  attorney."  I 
must  not,  however,  degrade  him ;  for  in  the  States  barris- 
ters and  attorneys  are  all  one.  I  cannot  but  think  that  he 
could  help  it,  and  that  he  should  not  give  up  to  law  what 
was  meant  for  mankind.  I  fear,  however,  that  successful 
Law  has  caught  him  in  her  intolerant  clutches,  and  that 
Literature,  who  surely  would  be  the  nobler  mistress,  must 
wear  the  willow.  Last  and  greatest  is  the  poet-laureate  of 
the  West,  for  Mr.  Longfellow  also  lives  at  Cambridge. 

I  am  not  at  all  aware  whether  the  nature  of  the  manu- 
facturing corporation  of  Lowell  is  generally  understood  by 
Enghshmen.  I  confess  that  until  I  made  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  plan,  I  was  absolutely  ignorant  on  the  subject. 
I  knew  that  Lowell  was  a  manufacturing  town  at  which  cot- 
ton is  made  into  calico,  and  at  which  calico  is  printed — as 
is  the  case  at  Manchester ;  but  I  conceived  this  was  done 
at  Lowell,  as  it  is  done  at  Manchester,  by  individual  enter- 
prise— that  I  or  any  one  else  could  open  a  mill  at  Lowell, 
and  that  the  manufacturers  there  were  ordinary  traders,  as 
they  are  at  other  manufacturing  towns.  But  this  is  by  no 
means  the  case. 

That  which  most  surprises  an  English  visitor  on  going 
through  the  mills  at  Lowell  is  the  personal  appearance  of 
the  men  and  women  who  work  at  them.  As  there  are  twice 
as  many  women  as  there  are  men,  it  is  to  them  that  the  at- 
tention is  chiefly  called.  They  are  not  only  better  dressed, 
cleaner,  and  better  mounted  in  every  respect  than  the  girls 
employed  at  manufactories  in  England,  but  they  are  so 

as  I  returned  ou  my  way  homeward,  had  the  melancholy  privilege  of 
being  present  at  his  funeral.  I  feel  bound  to  record  here  the  great 
kindness  with  which  Mr.  Felton  assisted  me  in  obtaining  such  infor- 
mation as  I  needed  respecting  the  institution  over  which  he  presided. 


2U 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


infinitely  superior  as  to  make  a  stranger  immediately  per- 
ceive that  some  very  strong!:  cause  must  have  created  the 
difference.  We  all  know  the  class  of  young  women  whom 
we  generally  see  serving  behind  counters  in  the  shops  of 
our  larger  cities.  They  are  neat,  well  dressed,  careful, 
especially  about  their  hair,  composed  in  their  manner,  and 
sometimes  a  little  supercilious  in  the  propriety  of  their 
demeanor.  It  is  exactly  the  same  class  of  young  women 
that  one  sees  in  the  factories  at  Lowell.  They  are  not  sal- 
low, nor  dirty,  nor  ragged,  nor  rough.  They  have  about 
them  no  signs  of  want,  or  of  low  culture.  Many  of  us  also 
know  the  appearance  of  those  girls  who  work  in  the  facto- 
ries in  England  ;  and  I  think  it  will  be  allowed  that  a  second 
glance  at  them  is  not  wanting  to  show  that  they  are  in  every 
respect  inferior  to  the  young  women  who  attend  our  shops. 
The  matter,  indeed,  requires  no  argument.  Any  young 
woman  at  a  shop  would  be  insulted  by  being  asked  whether 
she  had  worked  at  a  factory.  The  difference  with  regard 
to  the  men  at  Lowell  is  quite  as  strong,  though  not  so  strik- 
ing. Working  men  do  not  show  their  status  in  the  world 
by  their  outward  appearance  as  readily  as  women  ;  and,  as 
I  have  said  before,  the  number  of  the  women  greatly  ex- 
ceeded that  of  the  men. 

One  would  of  course  be  disposed  to  say  that  the  superior 
condition  of  the  workers  must  have  been  occasioned  by 
superior  wages ;  and  this,  to  a  certain  extent,  has  been  the 
cause.  But  the  higher  payment  is  not  the  chief  cause. 
Women's  wages,  including  all  that  they  receive  at  the  Lowell 
factories,  average  about  14s.  a  week,  which  is,  I  take  it,  fully 
a  third  more  than  women  can  earn  in  Manchester,  or  did 
earn  before  the  loss  of  the  American  cotton  began  to  tell 
upon  them.  But  if  wages  at  Manchester  were  raised  to 
the  Lowell  standard,  the  Manchester  women  would  not  be 
clothed,  fed,  cared  for,  and  educated  like  the  Lowell  women. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  workmen  and  the  workwomen  at  Lowell 
are  not  exposed  to  the  chances  of  an  open  labor  market. 
They  are  taken  in,  as  it  were,  to  a  philanthropical  manu- 
facturing college,  and  then  looked  after  and  regulated  more 
as  girls  and  lads  at  a  great  seminary,  than  as  hands  by 
whose  industry  profit  is  to  be  made  out  of  capital.  This 
is  all  very  nice  and  pretty  at  Ijowell,  but  I  am  afraid  it 
could  not  be  done  at  Manchester. 

There  are  at  present  twelve  different  manufactories  at 


LOWELL. 


275 


Lowell,  each  of  which  has  what  is  called  a  separate  corpo- 
ration. The  Merrimack  Manufacturing:  Company  was  incor- 
porated in  1822,  and  thus  Lowell  was  commenced.  The 
Lowell  Machine-shop  was  incorporated  in  1845,  and  since 
that  no  new  establisliment  has  been  added.  In  1821,  a  cer- 
tain Boston  manufacturing  company,  which  had  mills  at 
Waltham,  near  Boston,  was  attracted  by  the  water-power 
of  the  River  Merrimack,  on  which  the  present  town  of  Lowell 
is  situated.  A  canal  called  the  Pawtucket  Canal  had  been 
made  for  purposes  of  navigation  from  one  reach  of  the  river 
to  another,  with  the  object  of  avoiding  the  Pawtucket  Falls; 
and  this  canal,  with  the  adjacent  water-power  of  the  river, 
was  purchased  for  the  Boston  company.  The  place  was 
then  called  Lowell,  after  one  of  the  partners  in  that  com- 
pany. 

It  must  be  understood  that  water-power  alone  is  used  for 
preparing  the  cotton  and  working  the  spindles  and  looms  of 
the  cotton  mills.  Steam  is  applied  in  the  two  establish- 
ments in  which  the  cottons  are  printed,  for  the  purposes  of 
printing,  but  I  think  nowhere  else.  When  the  mills  are  at 
full  work,  about  two  and  a  half  million  yards  of  cotton 
goods  are  made  every  week,  and  nearly  a  million  pounds  of 
cotton  are  consumed  per  week,  (i  e.  842,000  lbs.,)  but  the 
consumption  of  coal  is  only  30,000  tons  in  the  year.  This 
will  give  some  idea  of  the  value  of  the  water-power.  The 
Pawtucket  Canal  was,  as  I  say,  bought,  and  Lowell  was 
commenced.  The  town  was  incorporated  in  1826,  and  the 
railway  between  it  and  Boston  was  opened  in  1835,  under 
the  superintendence  of  Mr.  Jackson,  the  gentleman  by 
whom  the  purchase  of  the  canal  had  in  the  first  instance 
been  made.    Lowell  now  contains  about  40,000  inhabitants. 

The  following  extract  is  taken  from  the  hand-book  to 
Lowell:  "Mr.  F.  C.  Lowell  had,  in  his  travels  abroad,  ob- 
served the  effect  of  large  manufacturing  establishments  on 
the  character  of  the  people,  and  in  the  establishment  at 
Waltham  the  founders  looked  for  a  remedy  for  these  defects. 
They  thought  that  education  and  good  morals  would  even 
enhance  the  profit,  and  that  they  could  compete  with  Great 
Britain  by  introducing  a  more  cultivated  class  of  operatives. 
For  this  purpose  they  built  boarding-houses,  which,  under 
the  direct  supervision  of  the  agent,  were  kept  by  discreet 
matrons" — I  can  answer  for  the  discreet  matrons  at  Lowell 
— "mostly  widows,  no  boarders  being  allowed  except  oper- 


276 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


atives.  Agents  and  overseers  of  high  moral  character  were 
selected ;  regulations  were  adopted  at  the  mills  and  board- 
ing-houses, by  which  only  respectable  girls  were  employed. 
The  mills  were  nicely  painted  and  swept" — I  can  also  an- 
swer for  the  painting  and  sweeping  at  Lowell — "  trees  set 
out  in  the  yards  and  along  the  streets,  habits  of  neatness 
and  cleanliness  encouraged  ;  and  the  result  justified  the  ex- 
penditure. At  Lowell  the  same  policy  has  been  adopted 
and  extended ;  more  spacious  mills  and  elegant  boarding- 
houses  have  been  erected;"  as  to  the  elegance,  it  may  be  a 
matter  of  taste,  but  as  to  the  comfort,  there  is  no  question 
— "the  same  care  as  to  the  classes  employed;  more  capital 
has  been  expended  for  cleanliness  and  decoration;  a  hos- 
pital has  been  established  for  the  sick,  where,  for  a  small 
price,  they  have  an  experienced  physician  and  skillful  nurses. 
An  institute,  with  an  extensive  library,  for  the  use  of  the 
mechanics,  has  been  endowed.  The  agents  have  stood  for- 
ward in  the  support  of  schools,  churches,  lectures,  and 
lyceums,  and  their  influence  contributed  highly  to  the  ele- 
vation of  the  moral  and  intellectual  character  of  the  opera- 
tives. Talent  has  been  encouraged,  brought  forward,  and 
recommended."  For  some  considerable  time  the  young 
women  wrote,  edited,  and  published  a  newspaper  among 
themselves,  called  the  Lowell  Offering.  "And  Lowell  has 
supplied  agents  and  mechanics  for  the  later  manufactur- 
ing places,  who  have  given  tone  to  society,  and  extended 
the  beneficial  influence  of  Lowell  through  the  United  States. 
Girls  from  the  country,  with  a  true  Yankee  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence, and  confident  in  their  own  powers,  pass  a  few  years 
here,  and  then  return  to  get  married  with  a  dower  secured 
by  their  exertions,  with  more  enlarged  ideas  and  extended 
means  of  information,  and  their  places  are  supplied  by 
younger  relatives.  A  large  proportion  of  the  female 
population  of  New  England  has  been  employed  at  some 
time  in  manufacturing  establishments,  and  they  are  not  on 
this  account  less  good  wives,  mothers,  or  educators  of 
families."  Then  the  account  goes  on  to  tell  how  the  health 
of  the  girls  has  been  improved  by  their  attendance  at  the 
mills;  how  they  put  money  into  the  savings  banks,  and  buy 
railway  shares  and  farms;  how  there  are  thirty  churches  in 
Lowell,  a  library,  banks,  and  insurance  offices;  how  there 
is  a  cemetery,  and  a  park ;  and  how  everything  is  beautiful, 
philanthropic,  profitable,  and  magnificent. 


LOWELL. 


211 


Tims  Lowell  is  the  realization  of  a  commercial  Utopia. 
Of  all  the  statements  made  in  the  little  book  which  I  have 
quoted,  I  cannot  point  out  one  which  is  exaggerated,  much 
less  false.  I  should  not  call  the  place  elegant;  in  other 
respects  I  am  disposed  to  stand  by  the  book.  Before  I  had 
made  any  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  the  apparent  comfort,  it 
struck  me  at  once  that  some  great  effort  at  excellence  was 
being  made.  I  went  into  one  of  the  discreet  matrons'  res- 
idences ;  and,  perhaps,  may  give  but  an  indifferent  idea  of 
her  discretion,  wlien  I  say  that  she  allowed  me  to  go  into 
the  bed -rooms.  If  you  want  to  ascertain  the  inner  ways  or 
habits  of  life  of  any  man,  woman,  or  child,  see,  if  it  be 
practicable  to  do  so,  his  or  her  bed-room.  You  will  learn 
more  by  a  minute's  glance  round  that  holy  of  holies,  than 
by  any  conversation.  Looking-glasses  and  such  like,  sus- 
pended dresses,  and  toilet-belongings,  if  taken  without 
notice,  cannot  lie  or  even  exaggerate.  The  discreet  matron 
at  first  showed  me  rooms  only  prepared  for  use,  for  at  the 
period  of  my  visit  Lowell  was  by  no  means  full ;  but  she 
soon  became  more  intimate  with  me,  and  I  went  through 
the  upper  part  of  the  house.  My  report  must  be  altogetlier 
in  her  favor  and  in  that  of  Lowell.  Everything  was  cleanly, 
well  ordered,  and  feminine.  There  was  not  a  bed  on  which 
any  woman  need  have  hesitated  to  lay  herself  if  occasion 
required  it.  I  fear  that  this  cannot  be  said  of  the  lodgings 
of  the  manufacturing  classes  at  Manchester.  The  board- 
ers all  take  their  meals  together.  As  a  rule,  they  have 
meat  twice  a  day.  Hot  meat  for  dinner  is  with  them  as 
much  a  matter  of  course,  or  probably  more  so,  than  with  any 
Englishman  or  woman  who  may  read  this  book.  For  in 
the  States  of  America  regulations  on  this  matter  are  much 
more  rigid  than  with  us.  Cold  meat  is  rarely  seen,  and  to 
live  a  day  without  meat  would  be  as  great  a  privation  as 
to  pass  a  night  without  bed. 

The  rules  for  the  guidance  of  these  boarding-houses  are 
very  rigid.  The  houses  themselves  belong  to  the  corpora- 
tions, or  different  manufacturing  establishments,  and  the 
tenants  are  altogether  in  the  power  of  the  managers.  None 
but  operatives  are  to  be  taken  in.  The  tenants  are  answer- 
able for  improper  conduct.  The  doors  are  to  be  closed  at 
ten  o'clock.  Any  boarders  who  do  not  attend  divine  wor- 
ship are  to  be  reported  to  the  managers.  The  yards  and 
walks  are  to  be  kept  clean,  and  snow  removed  at  once  ;  an(i 

24 


273 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  inmates  must  be  vaccinated,  etc.  etc.  etc.  It  is  expressly 
stated  by  the  Hamilton  Company — and  1  believe  by  ail  the 
companies — that  no  one  shall  be  employed  who  is  habitually 
absent  from  public  worship  on  Sunday,  or  who  is  known  to 
be  guilty  of  immorality,  it  is  stated  that  the  average  wages 
of  the  women  are  two  dollars,  or  eight  shillings,  a  week, 
besiJjs  their  board.  I  found  when  1  was  there  that  from 
three  dollars  to  three  and  a  half  a  week  were  paid  to  the 
women,  of  which  they  paid  one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents 
for  their  board.  As  this  would  not  fully  cover  the  expense 
of  their  keep,  twenty-five  cents  a  week  for  each  was  also  paid 
to  the  boarding-house  keepers  by  the  mill  agents.  This  sub- 
stantially came  to  the  same  thing,  as  it  left  the  two  dollars 
a  week,  or  eight  shillings,  with  the  girls  over  and  above 
their  cost  of  living.  Tne  board  included  washing,  lights, 
food,  bed,  and  attendance — leaving  a  surplus  of  eight  shil- 
lings a  week  for  clothes  and  saving.  Now  let  me  ask  any 
one  acquainted  with  Manchester  and  its  operatives,  whether 
that  is  not  Utopia  realized.  Factory  girls,  for  whom  every 
comfort  of  life  is  secured,  with  21/.  a  year  over  for  saving 
and  dress  !  One  sees  the  failing,  however,  at  a  moment. 
It  is  Utopia.  Any  Lady  Bountiful  can  tutor  three  or  four 
peasants  and  make  them  luxuriously  comfortable.  But  no 
Lady  Bountiful  can  give  luxurious  comfort  to  half  a  dozen 
parishes.  Lowell  is  now  nearly  forty  years  old,  and  con- 
tains but  40,000  inhabitants.  From  the  very  nature  of  its 
corporations  it  cannot  spread  itself.  Chicago,  which  has 
grown  out  of  nothing  in  a  much  shorter  period,  and  which 
has  no  factories,  has  now  120,000  inhabitants.  Lowell  is  a 
very  wonderful  place  and  shows  what  philanthropy  can  do ; 
but  I  fear  it  also  shows  what  philanthropy  cannot  do. 

There  are,  however,  other  establishments,  conducted  on 
the  same  principle  as  those  at  Lowell,  wiiich  have  had  the 
same  amount,  or  rather  the  same  sort  of  success.  Lawrence 
is  now  a  town  of  about  15,000  inhabitants,  and  Manchester 
of  about  24,000,  if  I  remember  rightly;  and  at  those  places 
the  mills  are  also  owned  by  corporations  and  conducted  as 
are  those  at  Lowell.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  as  New 
England  takes  her  place  in  the  world  as  a  great  manu- 
facturing country — which  place  she  undoubtedly  will  take 
sooner  or  later — she  must  abandon  the  hot-house  method  of 
providing  for  her  operatives  with  which  she  has  commenced 
her  work.  In  the  first  place,  Lowell  is  not  open  as  a  manu- 


LOWELL. 


2*70 


facturing  town  to  the  capitalists  even  of  New  England  at 
large.  Stock  may,  I  presume,  be  bought  in  the  corpora- 
tions, but  no  interloper  can  establish  a  mill  there.  It  is  a 
close  manufacturing  community,  bolstered  up  on  all  sides, 
and  has  none  of  that  capacity  lor  providing  employment  lor 
a  thiclvly  growing  population  which  belongs  to  such  places 
as  Manchester  aad  Leeds.  That  it  should  under  its  present 
system  have  been  made  in  any  degree  profitable  reflects 
great  credit  on  the  managers ;  but  the  profit  does  reach  an 
amount  which  in  America  can  be  considered  as  remuner- 
ative. The  total  capital  invested  by  the  twelve  corpora- 
tions is  thirteen  million  and  a  half  of  dollars,  or  about  two 
million  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds.  In  only  one  of 
the  corporations,  that  of  the  Merrimack  Company,  does  the 
profit  amount  to  twelve  per  cent  In  one,  that  of  the  Booth 
Company,  it  falls  below  seven  per  cent.  The  average  profit 
of  the  various  establishments  is  something  below  nine  per 
cent.  I  am  of  course  speaking  of  Lowell  as  it  was  previous 
to  the  war.  American  capitalists  are  not,  as  a  rule,  con- 
tented with  so  low  a  rate  of  interest  as  this. 

The  States  in  these  matters  have  had  a  great  advantage 
over  England.  They  have  been  able  to  begin  at  the  be- 
ginning. Manufactories  have  grown  up  among  us  as  our 
cities  grew — from  the  necessities  and  chances  of  the  times. 
When  labor  was  wanted  it  was  obtained  in  the  ordinary 
way ;  and  so  when  houses  were  built  they  were  built  in  the 
ordinary  way.  We  had  not  the  experience,  and  the  results 
either  for  good  or  bad,  of  other  nations  to  guide  us.  The 
Americans,  in  seeing  and  resolving  to  adopt  our  commercial 
successes,  have  resolved  also,  if  possible,  to  avoid  the  evils 
which  have  attended  those  successes.  It  would  be  very  de- 
sirable that  all  our  factory  girls  should  read  and  write,  wear 
clean  clothes,  have  decent  beds,  and  eat  hot  meat  every  day. 
But  that  is  now  impossible.  Gradually,  with  very  up-hill 
work,  but  still  I  trust  with  sure  work,  much  will  be  done  to 
improve  their  position  and  render  their  life  respectable  ; 
but  in  England  we  can  have  no  Lowells.  In  our  thickly 
populated  island  any  commercial  Utopia  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Nor  can,  as  1  think,  Lowell  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the 
future  manufacturing  towns  of  New  England.  When  New 
England  employs  millions  in  her  factories  instead  of  thou- 
sands— the  hands  employed  at  Lowell,  when  the  mills  are 
at  full  work,  are  about  11,000 — she  must  cease  to  provide 


280 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


for  them  their  beds  and  meals,  their  church-going  proprieties 
and  orderly  modes  of  life.  In  such  an  attempt  slie  has  all 
the  experience  of  the  world  against  her.  But  nevertheless 
I  think  she  will  have  done  much  good.  The  tone  which 
she  will  have  given  will  not  altogether  lose  its  influence. 
Employment  in  a  factory  is  now  considered  reputable  by  a 
farmer  and  his  children,  and  this  idea  will  remain.  Factory 
work  is  regarded  as  more  respectable  than  domestic  service, 
and  this  prestige  will  not  wear  itself  altogether  out.  Those 
now  employed  have  a  strong  conception  of  the  dignity  of 
their  own  social  position,  and  their  successors  will  inherit 
much  of  this,  even  though  they  may  find  themselves  excluded 
from  the  advantages  of  the  present  Utopia.  The  thing  has 
begun  well,  but  it  can  only  be  regarded  as  a  beginning. 
Steam,  it  may  be  presumed,  will  become  the  motive  power 
of  cotton  mills  in  New  England  as  it  is  with  us  ;  and  when 
it  is  so,  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done  at  any  one  place 
will  not  be  checked  by  any  such  limit  as  that  which  now 
prevails  at  Lowell.  Water-power  is  very  cheap,  but  it 
cannot  be  extended  ;  and  it  would  seem  that  no  place  can 
become  large  as  a  manufacturing  town  which  has  to  depend 
chiefly  upon  water.  It  is  not  improbable  that  steam  may 
be  brought  into  general  use  at  Lowell,  and  that  Lowell  may 
spread  itself  If  it  should  spread  itself  widely,  it  will  lose 
its  Utopian  characteristics. 

One  cannot  but  be  greatly  struck  by  the  spirit  of  philan- 
thropy in  which  the  system  of  Lowell  was  at  first  instituted. 
It  may  be  presumed  that  men  who  put  their  money  into 
such  an  undertaking  did  so  with  the  object  of  commercial 
profit  to  themselves ;  but  in  this  case  that  was  not  their 
first  object.  I  think  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  when 
Messrs.  Jackson  and  Lowell  went  about  their  task,  their 
grand  idea  was  to  place  factory  work  upon  a  respectable 
footing — to  give  employment  in  mills  which  should  not  be 
unhealthy,  degrading,  demoralizing,  or  hard  in  its  circum- 
stances. Throughout  the  Northern  States  of  America  the 
same  feeling  is  to  be  seen.  Good  and  thoughtful  men  have 
been  active  to  spread  education,  to  maintain  health,  to 
make  work  compatible  with  comfort  and  personal  dignity, 
and  to  divest  the  ordinary  lot  of  man  of  the  sting  of  that 
curse  which  was  supposed  to  be  uttered  when  our  first 
father  was  ordered  to  eat  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 
One  is  driven  to  contrast  this  feeling,  of  which  on  all  sides 


LOWELL  MILLS. 


281 


one  sees  such  ample  testimony,  with  that  sharp  desire  for 
profit,  that  anxiety  to  do  a  stroke  of  trade  at  every  turn, 
that  acknowledged  necessity  of  being  smart,  which  we  must 
own  is  quite  as  general  as  the  nobler  propensity.  I  believe 
that  both  phases  of  commercial  activity  may  be  attributed 
to  the  same  characteristic.  Men  in  trade  in  America  are 
not  more  covetous  than  tradesmen  in  England,  nor  probably 
are  they  more  generous  or  philanthropical.  But  that  which 
they  do,  they  are  more  anxious  to  do  thoroughly  and 
quickly.  They  desire  that  every  turn  taken  shall  be  a  great 
turn — or  at  any  rate  that  it  shall  be  as  great  as  possible. 
Ttiey  go  ahead  either  for  bad  or  good  with  all  the  energy 
they  have.  In  the  institutions  at  Lowell  I  think  we  may 
allow  that  the  good  has  very  much  prevailed. 

I  went  over  two  of  the  mills,  those  of  the  Merrimack 
corporation  and  of  the  Massachusetts.  At  the  former  the 
printing  establishment  only  was  at  work  ;  the  cotton  mills 
were  closed.  I  hardly  know  whether  it  will  interest  any 
one  to  learn  that  something  under  half  a  million  yards  of 
calico  are  here  printed  annually.  At  the  Lowell  Bleachery 
fifteen  million  yards  are  dyed  annually.  The  Merrimack 
Cotton  Mills  were  stopped,  and  so  had  the  other  mills  at 
Lowell  been  stopped,  till  some  short  time  before  my  visit. 
Trade  had  been  bad,  and  there  had  of  course  been  a  lack  of 
cotton.  I  was  assured  that  no  severe  suffering  had  been 
created  by  this  stoppage.  The  greater  number  of  hands 
had  returned  into  the  country — to  the  farms  from  whence 
they  had  come;  and  though  a  discontinuance  of  work  and 
wages  had  of  course  produced  hardship,  there  had  been  no 
actual  privation — no  hunger  and  want.  Those  of  the  work- 
people who  had  no  homes  out  of  Lowell  to  which  to  betake 
themselves,  and  no  means  at  Lowell  of  living,  had  received 
relief  before  real  suffering  had  begun.  I  was  assured,  with 
something  of  a  smile  of  contempt  at  the  question,  that  there 
had  been  nothing  like  hunger.  But,  as  I  said  before,  visi- 
tors always  see  a  great  deal  of  rose  color,  and  should  en- 
deavor to  allay  the  brilliancy  of  the  tint  with  the  proper 
amount  of  human  shading.  But  do  not  let  any  visitor  mix 
in  the  browns  with  too  heavy  a  hand  ! 

At  the  Massachusetts  Cotton  Mills  they  were  working 
with  about  two-thirds  of  their  full  number  of  hands,  and 
this,  I  was  told,  was  about  the  average  of  the  number  now 
employed  throughout  Lowell.    Working  at  this  rate  they 

24* 


282 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


had  now  on  hand  a  supply  of  cotton  to  last  them  for  six 
months.  Their  stocks  had  been  increased  lately,  and  on 
asking  from  whence,  I  was  informed  that  that  last  received 
had  come  to  them  from  Liverpool.  There  is,  I  believe,  no 
doubt  but  that  a  considerable  quantity  of  cotton  has  been 
shipped  back  from  England  to  the  States  since  the  civil 
war  began.  I  asked  the  gentleman,  to  whose  care  at  Lowell 
I  was  consigned,  whether  he  expected  to  get  cotton  from 
the  South — for  at  that  time  Beaufort,  in  South  Carolina, 
had  just  been  taken  by  the  naval  expedition.  He  had,  he 
said,  a  political  expectation  of  a  supply  of  cotton,  but  not 
a  commercial  expectation.  That  at  least  was  the  gist  of 
his  reply,  and  I  found  it  to  be  both  intelligent  and  intel- 
ligible. The  Massachusetts  Mills,  when  at  full  work,  em- 
ploy 1300  females  and  400  males,  and  turn  out  540,000 
yards  of  calico  per  week. 

On  my  return  from  Lowell  in  the  smoking  car,  an  old 
man  came  and  squeezed  in  next  to  me.  The  place  was  ter- 
ribly crowded,  and  as  the  old  man  was  thin  and  clean  and 
quiet,  I  willingly  made  room  for  him,  so  as  to  avoid  the 
contiguity  of  a  neighbor  who  might  be  neither  thin,  nor 
clean,  nor  quiet.  He  began  talking  to  me  in  whispers 
about  the  war,  and  I  was  suspicious  that  he  was  a  South- 
erner and  a  secessionist.  Under  such  circumstances  his 
company  might  not  be  agreeable,  unless  he  could  be  induced 
to  hold  his  tongue.  At  last  he  said,  "  I  come  from  Canada, 
you  know,  and  you — you're  an  Englishman,  and  therefore  I 
can  speak  to  you  openly;"  and  he  gave  me  an  afi'ectionate 
grip  on  the  knee  with  his  old  skinny  hand.  I  suppose  I  do 
look  more  like  an  Englishman  than  an  American,  but  I  was 
surprised  at  his  knowing  me  with  such  certainty.  "There 
is  no  mistaking  you,"  he  said,  "with  your  round  face  and 
your  red  cheeks.  They  don't  look  like  that  here,"  and  he 
gave  me  another  grip.  I  felt  quite  fond  of  the  old  man, 
and  offered  him  a  cigar. 


THE  RIGHTS  OP  WOMEN. 


283 


CHAPTER  XYIII. 

THE  EIGHTS  OP  WOMEN. 

We  all  know  that  the  subject  which  appears  above  as 
the  title  of  this  chapter  is  a  very  favorite  subject  in  Amer- 
ica. It  is,  I  hope,  a  very  favorite  subject  here  also,  and  I 
am  inclined  to  think  has  been  so  for  many  years  past.  The 
rights  of  women,  as  contradistinguished  from  the  wrongs  of 
women,  has  perhaps  been  the  most  precious  of  the  legacies 
left  to  us  by  the  feudal  ages.  How,  amid  the  rough  dark- 
ness of  old  Teuton  rule,  women  began  to  receive  that 
respect  which  is  now  their  dearest  right,  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  studies  of  history.  It  came,  I  take  it,  chiefly 
from  their  own  conduct.  The  women  of  the  old  classic 
races  seem  to  have  enjoyed  but  a  small  amount  of  respect 
or  of  rights,  and  to  have  deserved  as  little.  It  may  have 
been  very  well  for  one  Caesar  to  have  said  that  his  wife 
should  be  above  suspicion ;  but  his  wife  was  put  away,  and 
therefore  either  did  not  have  her  rights,  or  else  had  justly 
forfeited  them.  The  daughter  of  the  next  Caesar  lived  in 
Home  the  life  of  a  Messalina,  and  did  not  on  that  account 
seem  to  have  lost  her  "position  in  society,"  till  she  abso- 
lutely declined  to  throw  any  vail  whatever  over  her  pro- 
pensities. But  as  the  Roman  empire  fell,  chivalry  began. 
For  a  time  even  chivalry  afforded  but  a  dull  time  to  the 
women.  During  the  musical  period  of  the  Troubadours, 
ladies,  I  fancy,  had  but  little  to  amuse  them  save  the  music. 
But  that  was  the  beginning,  and  from  that  time  downward 
the  rights  of  women  have  progressed  very  favorably.  It 
may  be  that  they  have  not  yet  all  that  should  belong  to 
them.  If  that  be  the  case,  let  the  men  lose  no  time  in 
making  up  the  difference.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
women  who  are  now  fnaking  their  claims  may  perhaps 
hardly  know  when  they  are  well  off.  It  will  be  an  ill 
movement  if  they  insist  on  throwing  away  any  of  the  ad- 
vantages they  have  won.  As  for  the  women  in  America 
especially,  I  must  confess  that  I  think  they  have  a  "good 


284 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


time."  I  make  them  my  compliments  on  their  sagacity,  in- 
telligence, and  attractions,  but  1  utterly  refuse  to  them  any 
sympathy  for  supposed  wrongs.  0  forlunatas,  sua  si  bona 
norint!  Whether  or  no,  were  I  an  American  married  man 
and  father  of  a  family,  I  should  not  go  in  for  the  rights  of 
man — that  is  altogether  another  question. 

This  question  of  the  rights  of  women  divides  itself  into 
two  heads — one  of  which  is  very  important,  worthy  of  much 
consideration,  capable  perhaps  of  much  philanthropic  action, 
and  at  any  rate  affording  matter  for  grave  discussion.  This 
is  the  question  of  women's  work :  How  far  the  work  of  the 
world,  which  is  now  borne  chiefly  by  men,  should  be  thrown 
open  to  women  further  than  is  now  done  ?  The  other  seems 
to  me  to  be  worthy  of  no  consideration,  to  be  capable  of  no 
action,  to  admit  of  no  grave  discussion.  This  refers  to  the 
political  rights  of  women:  How  far  the  political  working  of 
the  world,  which  is  now  entirely  in  the  hands  of  men,  should 
be  divided  between  them  and  women  ?  The  first  question 
is  being  debated  on  our  side  of  the  Atlantic  as  keenly  per- 
haps as  on  the  American  side.  As  to  that  other  question, 
I  do  not  know  that  much  has  ever  been  said  about  it  in 
Europe. 

"You  are  doing  nothing  in  England  toward  the  employ- 
ment of  females,"  a  lady  said  to  me  in  one  of  the  States 
soon  after  my  arrival  in  America.  "Pardon  me,"  I  an- 
swered, "I  think  we  are  doing  much,  perhaps  too  much. 
At  any  rate  we  are  doing  something."  I  then  explained 
to  her  how  Miss  Faithful  had  instituted  a  printing  estab- 
lishment in  London ;  how  all  the  work  in  that  concern  was 
done  by  females,  except  such  heavy  tasks  as  those  for  which 
women  could  not  be  fitted,  and  I  handed  to  her  one  of  Miss 
Faithful's  cards.  "Ah,"  said  my  American  friend,  "poor 
creatures  I  I  have  no  doubt  their  very  flesh  will  be  worked 
off  their  bones."  I  thought  this  a  little  unjust  on  her  part; 
but  nevertheless  it  occurred  to  me  as  an  answer  not  unfit  to 
be  made  by  some  other  lady — by  some  woman  who  had  not 
already  advocated  the  increased  employment  of  women. 
Let  Miss  Faithful  look  to  that.  Not  that  she  will  work 
the  flesh  off  her  young  women's  bones,  or  allow  such  ter- 
rible consequences  to  take  place  in  Coram  Street;  not  that 
she  or  that  those  connected  with  her  in  that  enterprise  will 
do  aught  but  good  to  those  employed  therein.  It  will  not 
even  be  said  of  her  individually,  or  of  her  partners,  that 


MRS.  DALL. 


285 


tliey  have  worked  the  flesh  off  women's  bones;  but  may  it 
not  come  to  this,  that  when  the  tasks  now  done  by  men 
have  been  shifted  to  the  shouklers  of  women,  women 
themselves  will  so  complain  ?  May  it  not  go  further,  and 
come  even  to  this,  that  women  will  have  cause  for  such 
complaint?  I  do  not  think  that  such  a  result  will  come, 
because  I  do  not  think  that  the  object  desired  by  those  who 
are  active  in  the  matter  will  be  attained.  Men,  as  a  general 
rule  among  civilized  nations,  have  elected  to  earn  their  own 
bread  and  the  bread  of  the  women  also,  and  from  this 
resolve  on  their  part  I  do  not  think  that  they  will  be  beaten 
off. 

We  know  that  Mrs.  Dall,  an  American  lady,  has  taken 
up  this  subject,  and  has  written  a  book  on  it,  in  which 
great  good  sense  and  honesty  of  purpose  is  shown.  Mrs. 
Dall  is  a  strong  advocate  for  the  increased  employment  of 
women,  and  I,  with  great  deference,  disagree  with  her.  I 
allude  to  her  book  now  because  she  has  pointed  out,  I  think 
very  strongly,  the  great  reason  why  women  do  not  engage 
themselves  advantageously  in  trade  pursuits.  She  by  no 
means  overpraises  her  own  sex,  and  openly  declares  that 
young  women  will  not  consent  to  place  themselves  in  fair 
competition  with  men.  They  will  not  undergo  the  labor 
and  servitude  of  long  study  at  their  trades.  They  will  not 
give  themselves  up  to  an  apprenticeship.  They  will  not 
enter  upon  their  tasks  as  though  they  were  to  be  the  tasks 
of  their  lives.  They  may  have  the  same  physical  and 
mental  aptitudes  for  learning  a  trade  as  men,  but  they  have 
not  the  same  devotion  to  the  pursuit,  and  will  not  bind 
themselves  to  it  thoroughly  as  men  do.  In  all  which  I 
quite  agree  with  Mrs.  Dall ;  and  the  English  of  it  is — that 
the  young  women  want  to  get  married. 

God  forbid  that  they  should  not  so  want.  Indeed,  God 
has  forbidden  in  a  very  express  way  that  there  should  be 
any  lack  of  such  a  desire  on  the  part  of  women.  There 
has  of  late  years  arisen  a  feeling  among  masses  of  the  best 
of  our  English  ladies  that  this  feminine  propensity  should 
be  checked.  We  are  told  that  unmarried  women  may  be 
respectable,  which  we  always  knew  ;  that  they  may  be 
useful,  which  we  also  acknowledge — thinking  still  that,  if 
married,  they  would  be  more  useful ;  and  that  they  may  be 
happy,  which  we  trust — feeling  confident,  however,  that  they 
might  in  another  position  be  more  happy.    But  the  ques- 


286 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tion  ia  not  only  as  to  the  respectability,  usefulness,  and  hap- 
piness of  womankind,  but  as  ta  that  of  men  also.  If  women 
can  do  without  marriage,  can  men  do  so  ?  And  if  not,  how 
are  the  men  to  get  wives,  if  the  women  elect  to  remain 
single  ? 

It  will  be  thought  that  I  am  treating  the  subject  as  though 
it  were  simply  jocose,  but  I  beg  to  assure  my  reader  that 
such  is  not  my  intention.  It  certainly  is  the  fact  that  that 
disinclination  to  an  apprenticeship  and  unwillingness  to  bear 
the  long  training  for  a  trade,  of  which  Mrs.  Dall  complains 
on  the  part  of  young  women,  arise  from  the  fact  that  they 
have  other  hopes  with  which  such  apprenticeships  would  jar ; 
and  it  is  also  certain  that  if  such  disinclination  be  overcome 
on  the  part  of  any  great  number,  it  must  be  overcome  by 
the  destruction  or  banishment  of  such  hopes.  The  question 
is  whether  good  or  evil  would  result  from  such  a  change. 
It  is  often  said  that  whatever  difficulty  a  woman  may  have 
in  getting  a  husband,  no  man  need  encounter  difficulty  in 
finding  a  wife.  But,  in  spite  of  this  seeming  fact,  I  think 
it  must  be  allowed  that  if  women  are  withdrawn  from  the 
marriage  market,  men  must  be  withdrawn  from  it  also  to 
the  same  extent. 

In  any  broad  view  of  this  matter,  we  are  bound  to  look 
not  on  any  individual  case,  and  the  possible  remedies  for 
such  cases,  but  on  the  position  in  the  world  occupied  by 
women  in  general — on  the  general  happiness  and  welfare 
of  the  aggregate  feminine  world,  and  perhaps  also  a  little 
on  the  general  happiness  and  welfare  of  the  aggregate  male 
world.  When  ladies  and  gentlemen  advocate  the  right  of 
women  to  employment,  they  are  taking  very  different  ground 
from  that  on  which  stand  those  less  extensive  philanthro- 
pists who  exert  themselves  for  the  benefit  of  distressed  nee- 
dlewomen, for  instance,  or  for  the  alleviation  of  the  more 
bitter  misery  of  governesses.  The  two  questions  are  in  fact 
absolutely  antagonistic  to  each  other.  The  rights-of-women 
advocate  is  doing  his  best  to  create  that  position  for  women 
from  the  possible  misfortunes  of  which  the  friend  of  the 
needlewomen  is  struggling  to  relieve  them.  The  one  is  en- 
deavoring to  throw  work  from  oft'  the  shoulders  of  men  on 
to  the  shoulders  of  women,  and  the  other  is  striving  to  les- 
sen the  burden  which  women  are  already  bearing.  Of  course 
it  is  good  to  relieve  distress  in  individual  cases.  That  Song 
of  the  Shirt,  which  I  regard  as  poetry  of  the  immortal  kind, 


women's  rights  and  wrongs. 


287 


has  done  an  amount  of  good  infinitely  wider  than  poor 
Hood  ever  ventured  to  hope.  Of  all  such  efforts  I  would 
spealv  not  only  with  respect,  but  with  loving  admiration. 
But  of  those  whose  efforts  are  made  to  spread  work  more 
widely  among  women — to  call  upon  them  to  make  for  us 
our  watches,  to  print  our  books,  to  sit  at  our  desks  as  clerks 
and  to  add  up  our  accounts — much  as  I  may  respect  the 
individual  operators  in  such  a  movement,  I  can  express  no 
admiration  for  their  judgment. 

I  have  seen  women  with  ropes  round  their  necks  drawing 
a  harrow  over  plowed  ground.  No  one  will,  I  suppose,  say 
that  they  approve  of  that.  But  it  would  not  have  shocked 
me  to  see  men  drawing  a  harrow.  I  should  have  thought  it 
slow,  unprofitable  work ;  but  my  feelings  would  not  have 
been  hurt.  There  must,  therefore,  be  some  limit ;  but  if  we 
men  teach  ourselves  to  believe  that  work  is  good  for  women, 
where  is  the  limit  to  be  drawn,  and  who  shall  draw  it  ?  It 
is  true  that  there  is  now  po  actually  defined  limit.  There 
is  much  work  that  is  commonly  open  to  both  sexes.  Per- 
sonal domestic  attendance  is  so,  and  the  attendance  in  shops. 
The  use  of  the  needle  is  shared  between  men  and  women ; 
and  few,  I  take  it,  know  where  the  seamstress  ends  and 
where  the  tailor  begins.  In  many  trades  a  woman  can  be, 
and  very  often  is,  the  owner  and  manager  of  the  business. 
Painting  is  as  much  open  to  women  as  to  men,  as  also  is 
literature.  There  can  be  no  defined  limit;  but  nevertheless 
there  is  at  present  a  quasi  limit,  which  the  rights-of-women 
advocates  wish  to  move,  and  so  to  move  that  women  shall 
do  more  work  and  not  less.  A  woman  now  could  not  well 
be  a  cab-driver  in  London  ;  but  are  these  advocates  sure 
that  no  woman  will  be  a  cab-driver  when  success  has  attended 
their  efforts  ?  And  would  they  like  to  see  a  woman  driving 
a  cab  ?  For  my  part,  I  confess  I  do  not  like  to  see  a  woman 
acting  as  road-keeper  on  a  French  railway.  I  have  seen  a 
woman  acting  as  hostler  at  a  public  stage  in  Ireland.  I 
knew  the  circumstances — how  her  husband  had  become  ill 
and  incapable,  and  how  she  had  been  allowed  to  earn  the 
wages ;  but  nevertheless  the  sight  was  to  me  disagreeable, 
and  seemed,  as  far  as  it  went,  to  degrade  the  sex.  Chivalry 
has  been  very  active  in  raising  women  from  the  hard  and 
hardening  tasks  of  the  world  ;  and  through  this  action  they 
have  become  soft,  tender,  and  virtuous.  It  seems  to  me  that 


288 


KORTU  AMERICA. 


they  of  whom  I  am  now  speaking  are  desirous  of  undoing 
what  chivalry  has  done. 

The  argument  used  is  of  course  plain  enough.  It  is  said 
that  women  are  left  destitute  in  the  world — destitute  unless 
they  can  be  self-dependent,  and  that  to  women  should  be 
given  the  same  open  access  to  wages  that  men  possess,  in 
order  that  they  may  be  as  self-dependent  as  men.  Why 
should  a  young  woman,  for  whom  no  father  is  able  to  pro- 
vide, not  enjoy  those  means  of  provision  which  are  open  to 
a  young  man  so  circumstanced  ?  But  I  think  the  answer  is 
Tery  simple.  The  young  man,  under  the  happiest  circum- 
stances which  may  befall  him,  is  bound  to  earn  his  bread. 
The  young  woman  is  only  so  bound  when  happy  circum- 
stances do  not  befall  her.  Should  we  endeavor  to  make 
the  recurrence  of  unhappy  circumstances  more  general  or 
less  so  ?  What  does  any  tradesman,  any  professional  man, 
any  mechanic  wish  for  his  children  ?  Is  it  not  this,  that  his 
sons  shall  go  forth  and  earn  their  bread,  and  that  his  daugh- 
ters shall  remain  with  him  till  they  are  married  ?  Is  not 
that  the  mother's  wish  ?  Is  it  not  notorious  that  such  is  the 
wish  of  us  all  as  to  our  daughters  ?  In  advocating  the 
rights  of  women  it  is  of  other  men's  girls  that  we  think, 
never  of  our  own. 

But,  nevertheless,  what  shall  we  do  for  those  women  who 
must  earn  their  bread  by  their  own  work  ?  Whatever  we 
do,  do  not  let  us  willfully  increase  their  number.  By  open- 
ing trades  to  women,  by  making  them  printers,  watchmakers, 
accountants,  or  what  not,  we  shall  not  simply  relieve  those 
who  must  now  earn  their  bread  by  some  such  work  or  else 
starve.  It  will  not  be  within  our  power  to  stop  ourselves 
exactly  at  a  certain  point ;  to  arrange  that  those  women 
who  under  existing  circumstances  may  now  be  in  want  shall 
be  thus  placed  beyond  want,  but  that  no  others  shall  be 
affected.  Men,  I  fear,  will  be  too  willing  to  relieve  them- 
selves of  some  portion  of  their  present  burden,  should  the 
world's  altered  ways  enable  them  to  do  so.  At  present  a 
lawyer's  clerk  may  earn  perhaps  his  two  guineas  a  week, 
and  he  with  his  wife  live  on  that  in  fair  comfort.  But  if 
his  wife,  as  well  as  he,  has  been  brought  up  as  a  lawyer's 
clerk,  he  will  look  to  her  also  for  some  amount  of  wages. 
I  doubt  whether  the  two  guineas  would  be  much  increased, 
but  I  do  not  doubt  at  all  that  the  woman's  position  would 
be  injured. 


women's  social  position. 


289 


It  sccras  to  me  that  in  discussing  this  subject  philanthro- 
pists fail  to  take  hold  of  the  right  end  of  the  argument. 
Money  returns  from  work  are  very  good,  and  work  itself  is 
good,  as  bringing  such  returns  and  occupying  both  body 
and  mind ;  but  the  world's  work  is  very  hard,  and  workmen 
are  too  often  overdriven.  The  question  seems  to  me  to  be 
this — of  all  this  work  have  the  men  got  on  their  own  backs 
too  heavy  a  share  for  them  to  bear,  and  should  they  seek 
relief  by  throwing  more  of  it  upon  women  ?  It  is  the  rights 
of  man  that  we  are  in  fact  debating.  These  watches  are 
weary  to  make,  and  this  type  is  troublesome  to  set.  We 
have  battles  to  fight  and  speeches  to  make,  and  our  hands 
altogether  are  too  full.  The  women  are  idle — many  of 
them.  They  shall  make  the  watches  for  us  and  set  the  type; 
and  when  they  have  done  that,  why  should  they  not  make 
nails  as  they  do  sometimes  in  Worcestershire,  or  clean  horses, 
or  drive  the  cabs  ?  They  have  had  an  easy  time  of  it  for 
these  years  past,  but  we'll  change  that.  And  then  it  would 
come  to  pass  that  with  ropes  round  their  necks  the  women 
would  be  drawing  harrows  across  the  fields. 

I  don't  think  this  will  come  to  pass.  The  women  gener- 
ally do  know  when  they  are  well  off,  and  are  not  particularly 
anxious  to  accept  the  philanthropy  proffered  to  them  —  as 
Mrs.  Dall  says,  they  do  not  wish  to  bind  themselves  as  ap- 
prentices to  independent  money-making.  This  cry  has  been 
louder  in  America  than  with  us,  but  even  in  America  it  has 
not  been  efficacious  for  much.  There  is  in  the  States,  no 
doubt,  a  sort  of  hankering  after  increased  influence,  a  desire 
for  that  prominence  of  position  which  men  attain  by  loud 
voices  and  brazen  foreheads,  a  desire  in  the  female  heart  to 
be  up  and  doing  something,  if  the  female  heart  only  knew 
what;  but  even  in  the  States  it  has  hardly  advanced  beyond 
a  few  feminine  lectures.  In  many  branches  of  work  women 
are  less  employed  than  in  England.  They  are  not  so  fre- 
quent behind  counters  in  the  shops,  and  are  rarely  seen  as 
servants  in  hotels.  The  fires  in  such  houses  are  lighted  and 
the  rooms  swept  by  men.  But  the  American  girls  may  say 
they  do  not  desire  to  light  fires  and  sweep  rooms.  They 
are  ambitious  of  the  higher  classes  of  wwk.  But  those 
higher  branches  of  work  require  study,  apprenticeship,  a 
devotion  of  youth  ;  and  that  they  will  not  give.  It  is  very 
well  for  a  young  man  to  bind  himself  for  four  years,  and  to 
think  of  marrying  four  years  after  that  apprenticeship  be 

25 


290 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


over.  But  such  a  prospectus  will  not  do  for  a  girl.  While 
the  sun  shines  the  hay  must  be  made,  and  her  sun  shines 
earlier  in  the  day  than  that  of  him  who  is  to  be  her  husband. 
Let  him  go  through  the  apprenticeship  and  the  work,  and 
she  will  have  sufficient  on  her  hands  if  she  looks  well  after 
his  household.  Under  nature's  teaching  she  is  aware  of 
this,  and  will  not  bind  herself  to  any  other  apprenticeship, 
let  Mrs.  Dall  preach  as  she  may. 

I  remember  seeing,  either  at  New  York  or  Boston,  a 
wooden  figure  of  a  neat  young  woman,  as  large  as  life, 
standing  at  a  desk  with  a  ledger  before  her,  and  looking  as 
though  the  beau  ideal  of  human  bliss  were  realized  in  her 
employment.  Under  the  figure  there  was  some  notice  re- 
specting female  accountants.  Nothing  could  be  nicer  than 
the  lady's  figure,  more  flowing  than  the  broad  lines  of  her 
drapery,  or  more  attractive  than  her  auburn  ringlets.  There 
she  stood  at  work,  earning  her  bread  without  any  impedi- 
ment to  the  natural  operation  of  her  female  charms,  and 
adjusting  the  accounts  of  some  great  firm  with  as  much 
facility  as  grace.  I  wonder  whether  he  who  designed  that 
figure  had  ever  sat  or  stood  at  a  desk  for  six  hours ;  whether 
he  knew  the  dull  hum  of  the  brain  which  comes  from  long 
attention  to  another  man's  figures ;  whether  he  had  ever 
soiled  his  own  fingers  with  the  everlasting  work  of  office 
hours,  or  worn  his  sleeves  threadbare  as  he  leaned,  weary  in 
body  and  mind,  upon  his  desk  ?  Work  is  a  grand  thing — 
the  grandest  thing  we  have ;  but  work  is  not  picturesque, 
graceful,  and  in  itself  alluring.  It  sucks  the  sap  out  of 
men's  bones,  and  bends  their  backs,  and  sometimes  breaks 
their  hearts  ;  but  though  it  be  so,  I  for  one  would  not  wish 
to  throw  any  heavier  share  of  it  on  to  a  woman's  shoulders. 
It  was  pretty  to  see  those  young  women  with  spectacles  at 
the  Boston  library;  but  when  I  heard  that  they  were  there 
from  eight  in  the  morning  till  nine  at  night,  I  pitied  them 
their  loss  of  all  the  softness  of  home,  and  felt  that  they 
would  not  willingly  be  there,  if  necessity  were  less  stern. 

Say  that  by  advocating  the  rights  of  women,  philanthro- 
pists succeed  in  apportioning  more  work  to  their  share,  will 
they  eat  more,  wear  better  clothes,  lie  softer,  and  have  alto- 
gether more  of  the  fruits  of  work  than  they  do  now  ?  That 
some  would  do  so  there  can  be  no  doubt;  hut  as  little  that 
some  would  have  less.  If  on  the  whole  they  would  not  have 
more,  for  what  good  result  is  the  movement  made  ?  The 


woman's  social  position. 


291 


first  question  is,  whether  at  the  present  time  they  have  less 
than  their  proper  share.  There  are,  unquestionably,  terrible 
cases  of  female  want ;  and  so  there  are  also  of  want  among 
men.  Alas !  do  we  not  all  feel  that  it  must  be  so,  let  the 
philanthropists  be  ever  so  energetic  ?  And  if  a  woman  be 
left  destitute,  without  the  assistance  of  father,  brother,  or 
husband,  it  would  be  hard  if  no  means  of  earning  subsist- 
ence were  open  to  her.  But  the  object  now  sought  is  not 
that  of  relieving  such  distress.  It  has  a  much  wider  tend- 
ency, or  at  any  rate  a  wider  desire.  The  idea  is  that  women 
will  ennoble  themselves  by  making  themselves  independent, 
by  working  for  their  own  bread  instead  of  eating  bread 
earned  by  men.  It  is  in  that  that  these  new  philosophers 
seem  to  me  to  err  so  greatly.  Humanity  and  chivalry  have 
succeeded,  after  a  long  struggle,  in  teaching  the  man  to 
work  for  the  woman ;  and  now  the  woman  rebels  against 
such  teaching — not  because  she  likes  the  work,  but  because 
she  desires  the  influence  which  attends  it.  But  in  this  I 
wrong  the  woman — even  the  American  woman.  It  is  not 
she  who  desires  it,  but  her  philanthropical  philosophical 
friends  who  desire  it  for  her. 

If  work  were  more  equally  divided  between  the  sexes, 
some  women  would,  of  course,  receive  more  of  the  good 
things  of  the  world.  But  women  generally  would  not  do 
so.  The  tendency,  then,  would  be  to  force  young  women 
out  upon  their  own  exertions.  Fathers  would  soon  learn  to 
think  that  their  daughters  should  be  no  more  dependent  on 
them  than  their  sons ;  men  would  expect  their  wives  to  work 
at  their  own  trades ;  brothers  would  be  taught  to  think  it 
hard  that  their  sisters  should  lean  on  them,  and  thus  women, 
driven  upon  their  own  resources,  would  hardly  fare  better 
than  they  do  at  present. 

After  all  it  is  a  question  of  money,  and  a  contest  for  that 
power  and  influence  which  money  gives.  At  present,  men 
have  the  position  of  the  Lower  House  of  Parliament — they 
have  to  do  the  harder  work,  but  they  hold  the  purse.  Even 
in  England  there  has  grown  up  a  feeling  that  the  old  law  of 
the  land  gives  a  married  man  too  much  power  over  the  joint 
pecuniary  resources  of  him  and  his  wife,  and  in  America 
this  feeling  is  much  stronger,  and  the  old  law  has  been  modi- 
fied. Why  should  a  married  woman  be  able  to  possess 
nothing  ?  And  if  such  be  the  law  of  the  land,  is  it  worth  a 
woman's  while  to  marry  and  put  herself  in  such  a  position  ? 


292 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Those  are  the  questions  asked  by  the  friends  of  the  rights 
of  women.  But  the  young  women  do  marry,  and  the  men 
pour  their  earnings  into  their  wives'  laps. 

If  little  has  as  yet  been  done  in  extending  the  rights  of 
women  by  giving  them  a  greater  share  of  the  work  of  the 
world,  still  less  has  been  done  toward  giving  them  their 
portion  of  political  influence.  In  the  States  there  are  many 
men  of  mark,  and  women  of  mark  also,  who  think  that 
women  should  have  votes  for  public  elections.  Mr.  Wendell 
Phillips,  the  Boston  lecturer  who  advocates  abolition,  is  an 
apostle  in  this  cause  also ;  and  while  I  was  at  Boston  I  read 
the  provisions  of  a  will  lately  left  by  a  millionaire,  in  which 
he  bequeathed  some  very  large  sums  of  money  to  be  ex- 
pended in  agitation  on  this  subject.  A  woman  is  subject  to 
the  law ;  why  then  should  she  not  help  to  make  the  law  ?  A 
child  is  subject  to  the  law,  and  does  not  help  to  make  it; 
but  the  child  lacks  that  discretion  which  the  woman  enjoys 
equally  with  the  man.  That  I  take  it  is  the  amount  of  the 
argument  in  favor  of  the  political  rights  of  women.  The 
logic  of  this  is  so  conclusive  that  I  am  prepared  to  acknowl- 
edge that  it  admits  of  no  answer.  I  will  only  say  that  the 
mutual  good  relations  between  men  and  women,  which  are 
so  indispensable  to  our  happiness,  require  that  men  and 
women  should  not  take  to  voting  at  the  same  time  and  on 
the  same  result.  If  it  be  decided  that  women  shall  have 
political  power,  let  them  have  it  all  to  themselves  for  a 
season.  If  that  be  so  resolved,  I  think  we  may  safely  leave 
it  to  them  to  name  the  time  at  which  they  will  begin. 

I  confess  that  in  the  States  T  have  sometimes  been  driven 
to  think  that  chivalry  has  been  carried  too  far — that  there 
is  an  attempt  to  make  women  think  more  of  the  rights  of 
their  womanhood  than  is  needful.  There  are  ladies'  doors  at 
hotels,  and  ladies'  drawing-rooms,  ladies'  sides  on  the  ferry- 
boats, ladies'  windows  at  the  post-office  for  the  delivery  of 
letters  —  which,  by-the-by,  is  an  atrocious  institution,  as 
anybody  may  learn  who  will  look  at  the  advertisements 
called  personal  in  some  of  the  New  York  papers.  Why 
should  not  young  ladies  have  their  letters  sent  to  their 
houses,  instead  of  getting  them  at  a  private  window?  The 
post-office  clerks  can  tell  stories  about  those  ladies'  windows. 
But  at  every  turn  it  is  necessary  to  make  separate  provision 
for  ladies.  From  all  this  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  baker's 
daughter  looks  down  from  a  great  height  on  her  papa,  and 


EDUCATION. 


293 


by  no  means  thinks  her  brother  good  enough  for  her  asso- 
ciate. Nature,  the  great  restorer,  comes  in  and  teaches  her 
to  fall  in  love  with  the  butcher's  son.  Thus  the  evil  is  mit- 
igated ;  but  I  cannot  but  wish  that  the  young  woman  should 
not  see  herself  denominated  a  lady  so  often,  and  should  re- 
ceive fewer  lessons  as  to  the  extent  of  her  privileges.  I  would 
save  her,  if  1  could,  from  working  at  the  oven  ;  I  would  give 
to  her  bread  and  meat  earned  by  her  father's  care  and  her 
brother's  sweat;  but  when  she  has  received  these  good 
things,  I  would  have  her  proud  of  the  one  and  by  no  means 
ashamed  of  the  other. 

Let  women  say  what  they  will  of  their  rights,  or  men 
who  think  themselves  generous  say  what  they  will  for  them, 
the  question  has  all  been  settled  both  for  them  and  for  us 
men  by  a  higher  power.  They  are  the  nursing  mothers  of 
mankind,  and  in  that  law  their  fate  is  written  with  all  its 
joys  and  all  its  privileges.  It  is  for  men  to  make  those  joys 
as  lasting  and  those  privileges  as  perfect  as  may  be.  That 
women  should  have  their  rights  no  man  will  deny.  To  my 
thinking,  neither  increase  of  work  nor  increase  of  political 
influence  are  among  them.  The  best  right  a  woman  has  is 
the  right  to  a  husband,  and  that  is  the  right  to  which  I 
would  recommend  every  young  woman  here  and  in  the 
States  to  turn  her  best  attention.  On  the  whole,  I  think 
that  my  doctrine  will  be  more  acceptable  than  that  of  Mrs. 
Dall  or  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

EDUCATION. 

The  one  matter  in  which,  as  far  as  my  judgment  goes, 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  excelled  us  English- 
men, so  as  to  justify  them  in  taking  to  themselves  praise 
which  we  cannot  take  to  ourselves  or  refuse  to  them,  is  the 
matter  of  Education.  In  saying  this,  I  do  not  think  that 
I  am  proclaiming  anything  disgraceful  to  England,  though 
I  am  proclaiming  much  that  is  creditable  to  America.  To 
the  Americans  of  the  States  was  given  the  good  fortune  of 

25* 


294 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


beginning  at  the  beginning.  The  French  at  the  time  of 
their  revolution  endeavored  to  reorganize  everything,  and 
to  begin  the  world  again  with  new  habits  and  grand  theo- 
ries ;  but  the  French  as  a  people  were  too  old  for  such  a 
change,  and  the  theories  fell  to  the  ground.  But  in  the 
States,  after  their  revolution,  an  Anglo-Saxon  people  had 
an  opportunity  of  making  a  new  State,  with  all  the  expe- 
rience of  the  world  before  them;  and  to  this  matter  of 
education  they  were  from  the  first  aware  that  they  must 
look  for  their  success.  They  did  so ;  and  unrivaled  pop- 
ulation, wealth,  and  intelligence  has  been  the  result;  and 
with  these,  looking  at  the  whole  masses  of  the  people — I 
think  I  am  justified  in  saying — unrivaled  comfort  and  hap- 
piness. It  is  not  that  you,  my  reader,  to  whom  in  this 
matter  of  education  fortune  and  your  parents  have  probably 
been  bountiful,  would  have  been  more  happy  in  New  York 
than  in  London.  It  is  not  that  I,  who,  at  any  rate,  can 
read  and  write,  have  cause  to  wish  that  I  had  been  an 
American.  But  it  is  this :  if  you  and  I  can  count  up  in  a 
day  all  those  on  whom  our  eyes  may  rest  and  learn  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  lives,  we  shall  be  driven  to  conclude 
that  nine-tenths  of  that  number  would  have  had  a  better 
life  as  Americans  than  they  can  have  in  their  spheres  as 
Englishmen.  The  States  are  at  a  discount  with  us  now,  in 
the  beginning  of  this  year  of  grace  1862;  and  Englishmen 
were  not  very  willing  to  admit  the  above  statement,  even 
when  the  States  were  not  at  a  discount.  But  I  do  not 
think  that  a  man  can  travel  through  the  States  with  his 
eyes  open  and  not  admit  the  fact.  Many  things  will  con- 
spire to  induce  him  to  shut  his  eyes  and  admit  no  conclusion 
favorable  to  the  Americans.  Men  and  women  will  some- 
times be  impudent  to  him ;  the  better  his  coat,  the  greater 
the  impudence.  He  will  be  pelted  with  the  braggadocio 
of  equality.  The  corns  of  his  Old  World  conservatism  will 
be  trampled  on  hourly  by  the  purposely  vicious  herd  of  un- 
couth democracy.  The  fact  that  he  is  paymaster  will  go 
for  nothing,  and  will  fail  to  insure  civility.  I  shall  never 
forget  my  agony  as  I  saw  and  heard  my  desk  fall  from  a 
porter's  hand  on  a  railway  station,  as  he  tossed  it  from  him 
seven  yards  off  on  to  the  hard  pavement.  I  heard  its  poor, 
weak  intestines  rattle  in  their  death  struggle,  and  knowing 
that  it  was  smashed,  I  forgot  my  position  on  American  soil 
and  remonstrated.     ''It's  my  desk,  and  you  have  utterly 


EDUCATION. 


295 


destroyed  it,"  I  said.  "Ha!  ha  I  ha  I"  laughed  the  por- 
ter. "You've  destroyed  iny  property,"  I  rejoined,  "and 
it's  no  laughing  matter."  And  then  all  the  crowd  laughed. 
"Guess  you'd  better  get  it  glued,"  said  one.  So  I  gathered 
up  the  broken  article  and  retired  mournfully  and  crestfallen 
into  a  coach.  This  was  very  sad,  and  foi-  the  moment  I 
deplored  the  ill  luck  which  had  brought  me  to  so  savage  a 
country.  Such  and  such  like  are  the  incidents  which  make 
an  Englishman  in  the  States  unhappy,  and  rouse  his  gall 
against  the  institutions  of  the  country;  these  things  and 
the  continued  appliance  of  the  irritating  ointment  of  Amer- 
ican braggadocio  with  which  his  sores  are  kept  open.  But 
though  I  was  badly  off  on  that  railway  platform,  worse 
off  than  I  should  have  been  in  England,  all  that  crowd  of 
porters  round  me  were  better  off  than  our  English  por- 
ters. They  had  a  "good  time"  of  it.  And  this,  0  my  Eng- 
lish brother  who  has  traveled  through  the  States  and  re- 
turned disgusted,  is  the  fact  throughout.  Those  men  whose 
familiarity  was  so  disgusting  to  you  are  having  a  good  time 
of  it.  "They  might  be  a  little  more  civil,"  you  say,  "and 
yet  read  and  write  just  as  well."  True  ;  but  they  are  argu- 
ing in  their  minds  that  civility  to  you  will  be  taken  by  you 
for  subservience,  or  for  an  acknowledgment  of  superiority ; 
and  looking  at  your  habits  of  life — yours  and  mine  together 
— I  am  not  quite  sure  that  they  are  altogether  wrong.  Have 
you  ever  realized  to  yourself  as  a  fact  that  the  porter  who 
carries  your  box  has  not  made  himself  inferior  to  you  by 
the  very  act  of  carrying  that  box  ?  If  not,  that  is  the  very 
lesson  which  the  man  wishes  to  teach  you. 

If  a  man  can  forget  his  own  miseries  in  his  journeyings, 
and  think  of  the  people  he  comes  to  see  rather  than  of  him- 
self, I  think  he  will  find  himself  driven  to  admit  that  educa- 
tion has  made  life  for  the  million  in  the  Northern  States 
better  than  life  for  the  million  is  with  us.  They  have  begun 
at  the  beginning,  and  have  so  managed  that  every  one  may 
learn  to  read  and  write — have  so  managed  that  almost  every 
one  does  learn  to  read  and  write.  With  us  this  cannot  now 
be  done.  Population  had  come  upon  us  in  masses  too  thick 
for  management,  before  we  had  as  yet  acknowledged  that  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  that  these  masses  should  be  educated. 
Prejudices,  too,  had  sprung  up,  and  habits,  and  strong  sec- 
tional feelings,  all  antagonistic  to  a  great  national  system 
of  education.    We  are,  I  suppose,  now  doing  all  that  we 


296 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


can  do ;  but  comparatively  it  is  little.  I  think  I  saw  some 
time  since  that  the  cost  for  gratuitous  education,  or  educa- 
tion in  part  gratuitous,  wliicli  had  fallen  upon  the  nation 
had  already  amounted  to  the  sum  of  800,000/.;  and  I  think 
also  that  I  read  in  the  document  which  revealed  to  me  this 
fact  a  very  strong  opinion  that  government  could  not  at  pres- 
ent go  much  further.  But  if  this  matter  were  regarded  in  Eng- 
land as  it  is  regarded  in  Massachusetts,  or  rather,  had  it  from 
some  prosperous  beginning  been  put  upon  a  similar  footing, 
800,000/.  would  not  have  been  esteemed  a  great  expenditure 
for  free  education  simply  in  the  City  of  London.  In  1857 
the  public  schools  of  Boston  cost  10,000/  ,  and  these  schools 
were  devoted  to  a  population  of  about  180,000  souls.  Tak- 
ing the  population  of  London  at  two  and  a  half  millions, 
the  whole  sum  now  devoted  to  England  would,  if  expended 
in  the  metropolis,  make  education  there  even  cheaper  than 
it  is  in  Boston.  In  Boston,  during  1857,  there  were  above 
24,000  pupils  at  these  public  schools,  giving  more  than 
one-eighth  of  the  whole  population.  But  I  fear  it  would 
not  be  practicable  for  us  to  spend  800,000/.  on  the  gratui- 
tous education  of  London.  Rich  as  we  are,  we  should  not 
know  where  to  raise  the  money.  In  Boston  it  is  raised  by 
a  separate  tax.  It  is  a  thing  understood,  acknowledged, 
and  made  easy  by  being  habitual — as  is  our  national  debt. 
I  do  not  know  that  Boston  is  peculiarly  blessed,  but  I  quote 
the  instance,  as  I  have  a  record  of  its  schools  before  me. 
At  the  three  high  schools  in  Boston,  at  which  the  average 
of  pupils  is  526,  about  13/.  per  head  is  paid  for  free  edu- 
cation. The  average  price  per  annum  of  a  child's  school- 
ing throughout  these  schools  in  Boston  is  about  3/.  for 
each.  To  the  higher  schools  any  boy  or  girl  may  attain 
without  any  expense,  and  the  education  is  probably  as  good 
as  can  be  given,  and  as  far  advanced.  The  only  question 
is,  whether  it  is  not  advanced  further  than  may  be  neces- 
sary. Here,  as  at  New  York,  I  was  almost  startled  by  the 
amount  of  knowledge  around  me,  and  listened,  as  I  might 
have  done  to  an  examination  in  theology  among  young 
Brahmins.  When  a  young  lad  explained  in  my  hearing  all 
the  properties  of  the  different  levers  as  exemplified  by  the 
bones  of  the  human  body,  I  bowed  my  head  before  him  in 
unaffected  humility.  We,  at  our  English  schools,  never 
got  beyond  the  use  of  those  bones  which  he  described  with 
such  accurate  scientific  knowledge.    In  one  of  the  girls' 


EDUCATION. 


29T 


schools  they  were  reading  Milton,  and  when  we  entered 
were  discussing  the  nature  of  the  pool  in  which  the  devil  is 
described  as  wallowing.  The  question  had  been  raised  by 
one  of  the  girls.  A  pool,  so  called,  was  supposed  to  con- 
tain but  a  small  amount  of  water,  and  how  could  the  devil, 
being  so  large,  get  into  it  ?  Then  came  the  origin  of  the 
word  pool — from  ''palus,"  a  marsh,  as  we  were  told,  some 
dictionary  attesting  to  the  fact,  and  such  a  marsh  might 
cover  a  large  expanse.  The  "Palus  Maiotis"  was  then 
quoted.  And  so  we  went  on  till  Satan's  theory  of  politi- 
cal liberty, 

"  Better  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven," 

was  thoroughly  discussed  and  understood.  These  girls  of 
sixteen  and  seventeen  got  up  one  after  another  and  gave 
their  opinions  on  the  subject — how  far  the  devil  was  right, 
and  how  far  he  was  manifestly  v/rong.  I  was  attended  by 
one  of  the  directors  or  guardians  of  the  schools ;  and  the 
teacher,  I  thought,  was  a  little  embarrassed  by  her  position. 
But  the  girls  themselves  were  as  easy  in  their  demeanor  as 
though  they  were  stitching  handkerchiefs  at  home. 

It  is  impossible  to  refrain  from  telling  all  this,  and  from 
making  a  little  innocent  fun  out  of  the  superexcellencies  of 
these  schools ;  but  the  total  result  on  my  mind  was  very 
greatly  in  their  favor.  And  indeed  the  testimony  came  in  both 
ways.  Not  only  was  I  called  on  to  form  an  opinion  of  what 
the  men  and  women  would  beco  le  from  the  education  which 
was  given  to  the  boys  and  girls,  but  also  to  say  what  must 
have  been  the  education  of  the  boys  and  girls  from  what  I 
saw  of  the  men  and  women.  Of  course  it  will  be  under- 
stood that  I  am  not  here  speaking  of  those  I  met  in  society 
or  of  their  children,  but  of  the  working  people — of  that 
class  who  find  that  a  gratuitous  education  for  their  children 
is  needful,  if  any  considerable  amount  of  education  is  to  be 
given.  The  result  is  to  be  seen  daily  in  the  whole  inter-^ 
course  of  life.  The  coachman  who  drives  you,  the  man  who 
mends  your  window,  the  boy  who  brings  home  your  pur- 
chases, the  girl  who  stitches  your  wife's  dress, — they  all 
carry  with  them  sure  signs  of  education,  and.  show  it  in 
every  word  they  utter. 

It  will  of  course  be  understood  that  this  is,  in  the  sepa- 
rate States,  a  matter  of  State  law ;  indeed,  I  may  go  fur- 
ther, and  say  that  it  is,  in  most  of  the  States,  a  matter  of 


298 


NOHTH  AMERICA. 


State  constitution.  It  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  Federal 
constitution.  The  United  States  as  a  nation  takes  no  heed 
of  tlie  education  of  its  people.  All  that  is  left  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  separate  States.  In  most  of  the  thirteen  orig- 
inal States  provision  is  made  in  the  written  constitution  for 
the  general  education  of  the  people  ;  but  this  is  not  done 
in  all.  I  find  that  it  was  more  frequently  done  in  the  North- 
ern or  free-soil  States  than  in  those  which  admitted  slavery, 
as  might  have  been  expected.  In  the  constitutions  of  South 
Carolina  and  Virginia  I  find  no  allusion  to  the  public  pro- 
vision for  education ;  but  in  those  of  North  Carolina  and 
Georgia  it  is  enjoined.  The  forty-first  section  of  the  con- 
stitution for  North  Carolina  enjoins  that  "schools  shall  be 
established  by  the  legislature  for  the  convenient  instruction 
of  youth,  with  such  salaries  to  the  masters,  paid  by  the 
public,  as  may  enable  them  to  instruct  at  low  pi^ices" — 
showing  that  the  intention  here  was  to  assist  education,  and 
not  provide  it  altogether  gratuitously.  I  think  that  pro- 
vision for  public  education  is  enjoined  in  the  constitutions 
of  all  the  States  admitted  into  the  Union  since  the  first 
Federal  knot  was  tied  except  in  that  of  Illinois.  Vermont 
was  the  first  so  admitted,  in  1791 ;  and  Vermont  declares 
that  "  a  competent  number  of  schools  ought  to  be  main- 
tained in  each  town  for  the  convenient  instruction  of  youth." 
Ohio  was  the  second,  in  1802 ;  and  Ohio  enjoins  that  "the 
General  Assembly  shall  make  such  provisions  by  taxation 
or  otherwise  as,  with  the  income  arising  from  the  school 
trust  fund,  will  secure  a  thorough  and  efficient  system  of 
common  schools  throughout  the  State  ;  but  no  religious  or 
other  sect  or  sects  shall  ever  have  any  exclusive  right  or 
control  of  any  part  of  the  school  funds  of  this  State."  In 
Indiana,  admitted  in  1816,  it  is  required  that  "the  General 
Assembly  shall  provide  by  law  for  a  general  and  uniform 
system  of  common  schools."  Illinois  was  admitted  next,  in 
1818;  but  the  constitution  of  Illinois  is  silent  on  the  sub- 
ject of  education.  It  enjoins,  however,  in  lieu  of  this,  that 
no  person  shall  fight  a  duel  or  send  a  challenge  !  If  he  do, 
he  is  not  only  to  be  punished,  but  to  be  deprived  forever  of 
the  power  of  holding  any  office  of  honor  or  profit  in  the 
State.  I  have  no  reason,  however,  for  supposing  that  edu- 
cation is  neglected  in  Illinois,  or  that  dueling  has  been  abol- 
ished. In  xMaine  it  is  demanded  that  the  towns — the  whole 
country  is  divided  into  what  are  called  towns — shall  make 


EDUCATION. 


299 


suitable  provision  at  their  own  expense  for  the  support  and 
maintenance  of  public  schools. 

Some  of  these  constitutional  enactments  are  most  mag- 
niloquently  worded,  but  not  always  with  precise  grammati- 
cal correctness.  That  for  the  famous  Bay  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts runs  as  follows  :  "Wisdom  and  knowledge,  as  well 
as  virtue,  diffused  generally  among  the  body  of  the  people, 
being  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  their  rights  and  lib- 
erties, and  as  these  depend  on  spreading  the  opportunities 
and  advantages  of  education  in  the  various  parts  of  the 
country  and  among  the  different  orders  of  the  people,  it 
shall  be  the  duty  of  the  legislatures  and  magistrates,  in  all 
future  periods  of  this  commonwealth,  to  cherish  the  interest 
of  literature  and  the  sciences,  and  of  all  seminaries  of  them, 
especially  the  University  at  Cambridge,  public  schools  and 
grammar  schools,  in  the  towns  ;  to  encourage  private  soci- 
eties and  public  institutions  by  rewards  and  immunities  for 
the  promotion  of  agriculture,  arts,  sciences,  commerce,  trades, 
manufactures,  and  a  natural  history  of  the  country;  to  coun- 
tenance and  inculcate  the  principles  of  humanity  and  gen- 
eral benevolence,  public  and  private  charity,  industry  and 
frugality,  honesty  and  punctuality  in  all  their  dealings;  sin- 
cerity, good  humor,  and  all  social  affections  and  generous 
sentiments  among  the  people."  I  must  confess  that,  had 
the  words  of  that  little  constitutional  enactment  been  made 
knowQ  to  me  before  I  had  seen  its  practical  results,  I  should 
not  have  put  much  faith  in  it.  Of  all  the  public  schools  I 
have  ever  seen — by  public  schools  I  mean  schools  for  the 
people  at  large  maintained  at  public  cost — those  of  Massa- 
chusetts are,  I  think,  the  best.  But  of  all  the  educational 
enactments  which  I  ever  read,  that  of  the  same  State  is,  I 
should  say,  the  worst.  In  Texas  now,  of  which  as  a  State 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  do  not  think  much,  they  have 
done  it  better:  "A  general  diffusion  of  knowledge  being 
essential  to  the  preservation  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  people,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  legislature  of  this 
State  to  make  suitable  provision  for  the  support  and  main- 
tenance of  public  schools."  So  say  the  Texans ;  but  then 
the  Texans  had  the  advantage  of  a  later  experience  than 
any  which  fell  in  the  way  of  the  constitution-makers  of 
Massachusetts. 

There  is  something  of  the  magniloquence  of  the  French 
style — of  the  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  mode  of  elo- 


300 


NORTH  AMERICA 


quence — in  the  preambles  of  most  of  these  constitutions, 
which,  but  for  their  success,  would  have  seemed  to  have 
prophesied  loudly  of  failure.  Those  of  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  are  the  least  so,  and  that  of  Massachusetts 
by  far  the  most  violently  magniloquent.  They  generally 
commence  by  thanking  God  for  the  present  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty  of  the  people,  and  by  declaring  that  all  men 
are  born  free  and  equal.  New  York  and  Pennsylvania, 
however,  refrain  from  any  such  very  general  remarks. 

I  am  well  aware  that  all  these  constitutional  enactments 
are  not  likely  to  obtain  much  credit  in  England.  It  is  not 
only  that  grand  phrases  fail  to  convince  us,  but  that  they 
carry  to  our  senses  almost  an  assurance  of  their  own  inef- 
ficiency. When  we  hear  that  a  people  have  declared  their 
intention  of  being  henceforward  better  than  their  neighbors, 
and  going  upon  a  new  theory  that  shall  lead  them  direct  to 
a  terrestrial  paradise,  we  button  up  our  pockets  and  lock  up 
our  spoons.  And  that  is  what  we  have  done  very  much  as 
regards  the  Americans.  We  have  walked  with  them  and 
talked  with  them,  and  bought  with  them  and  sold  with  them  ; 
but  we  have  mistrusted  them  as  to  their  internal  habits  and 
modes  of  life,  thinking  that  their  philanthropy  was  preten- 
tious and  that  their  theories  were  vague.  Many  cities  in  the 
States  are  but  skeletons  of  towns,  the  streets  being  there, 
and  the  houses  numbered — but  not  one  house  built  out  of 
ten  that  have  been  so  counted  up.  We  have  regarded  their 
institutions  as  we  regard  those  cities,  and  have  been  spe- 
cially willing  so  to  consider  them  because  of  the  fine  lan- 
guage in  which  they  have  been  paraded  before  us.  They  have 
been  regarded  as  the  skeletons  of  philanthropical  systems, 
to  which  blood  and  flesh  and  muscle,  and  even,  skin,  are 
wanting.  But  it  is  at  least  but  fair  to  inquire  how  far  the 
promise  made  has  been  carried  out.  The  elaborate  word- 
ings of  the  constitutions  made  by  the  French  politicians  in 
the  days  of  their  great  revolution  have  always  been  to  us  no 
more  than  so  many  written  grimaces  ;  but  we  should  not 
have  continued  so  to  regard  them  had  the  political  liberty 
which  they  promised  followed  upon  the  promises  so  mag- 
niloquently  made.  As  regards  education  in  the  States — at 
any  rate  in  the  Northern  and  Western  States — 1  think  that 
the  assurances  put  forth  in  the  various  written  constitutions 
have  been  kept.  If  this  be  so,  an  American  citizen,  let  him 
be  ever  so  arrogant,  ever  so  impudent  if  you  will,  is  at  any 


EDUCATION. 


aoi 


rate  a  civilized  being,  and  on  the  road  to  tliat  cultivation 
which  will  sooner  or  later  divest  him  of  his  arrogance. 
Emollit  mores.  We  quote  here  our  old  friend  the  colonel 
again.  If  a  gentleman  be  compelled  to  confine  his  classical 
allusions  to  one  quotation,  he  cannot  do  better  than  hang 
by  that. 

But  has  education  been  so  general,  and  has  it  had  the 
desired  result?  In  the  City  of  Boston,  as  I  have  sj'.id,  I 
found  that  in  1857  about  one-eighth  of  the  whole  population 
were  then  on  the  books  of  the  free  public  schools  as  pupils, 
and  that  about  one-ninth  of  the  population  formed  the 
average  daily  attendance.  To  these  numbers  of  course  i 
must  be  added  all  pupils  of  the  richer  classes — those  for 
whose  education  their  parents  chose  to  pay.  As  nearly  as 
I  can  learn,  the  average  duration  of  each  pupil's  schooling 
is  six  years,  and  if  this  be  figured  out  statistically,  I  think 
it  will  show  that  education  in  Boston  reaches  a  very  large 
majority — I  might  almost  say  the  whole — of  the  population 
That  the  education  given  in  other  towns  of  Massachusetts 
is  not  so  good  as  that  given  in  Boston  I  do  not  doubt,  but 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  quite  as  general. 

I  have  spoken  of  one  of  the  schools  of  New  York.  In  that 
city  the  public  schools  are  apportioned  to  the  wards,  and 
are  so  arranged  that  in  each  ward  of  the  city  there  are 
public  schools  of  different  standing  for  the  gratuitous  use  of 
the  children.  The  population  of  the  City  of  New  York  in 
1857  was  about  650,000,  and  in  that  year  it  is  stated  that 
there  were  135,000  pupils  in  the  schools.  By  this  it  would 
appear  that  one  person  in  five  throughout  the  city  was  then 
under  process  of  education — which  statement,  however,  I 
cannot  receive  with  implicit  credence.  It  is,  however,  also 
stated  that  the  daily  attendances  averaged  something  less 
than  50,000  a  day,  and  this  latter  statement  probably  implies 
some  mistake  in  the  former  one.  Taking  the  two  together 
for  what  they  are  worth,  they  show,  I  think,  that  school 
teaching  is  not  only  brought  within  the  reach  of  the  popula- 
tion generally,  but  is  used  by  almost  all  classes.  At  New 
York  there  are  separate  free  schools  for  colored  children. 
At  Philadelphia  I  did  not  see  the  schools,  but  I  was  assured 
that  the  arrangements  there  were  equal  to  those  at  New 
York  and  Boston.  Indeed  I  was  told  that  they  were  in- 
finitely better ;  but  then  I  was  so  told  by  a  Philadelphian. 
In  the  State  of  Connecticut  the  public  schools  are  certainly 

26 


302 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


equal  to  those  in  any  part  of  the  IJnion.  As  far  as  I  could 
learn  etlaeation — what  we  should  call  advanced  education — 
is  brought  within  the  reach  of  all  classes  in  the  Northern 
and  Western  States  of  America — and,  I  would  wish  to  add 
here,  to  those  of  the  Canadas  also. 

So  much  for  the  schools,  and  now  for  the  results.  I  do 
not  know  that  anything  impresses  a  visitor  more  strongly 
with  the  amount  of  books  sold  in  the  States,  than  the  prac- 
tice of  selling  them  as  it  has  been  adopted  in  the  railway 
cars.  Personally  the  traveler  will  find  the  system  very  dis- 
agreeable— as  is  everything  connected  with  these  cars.  A 
young  man  enters  during  the  journey — for  the  trade  is  car- 
ried out  while  the  cars  are  traveling,  as  is  also  a  very  brisk 
trade  in  lollipops,  sugar-candy,  apples,  and  ham  sand- 
wiches— the  young  tradesman  enters  the  car  firstly  with  a 
pile  of  magazines,  or  of  novels  bound  like  magazines.  These 
are  chiefly  the  "Atlantic,"  published  at  Boston,  "Harper's 
Magazine,"  published  at  New  York,  and  a  cheap  series  of 
novels  published  at  Philadelphia.  As  he  walks  along  he 
flings  one  at  every  passenger.  An  Englishman,  when  he  is 
first  introduced  to  this  manner  of  trade,  becomes  much 
astonished.  He  is  probably  reading,  and  on  a  sudden  he 
finds  a  fat,  fluffy  magazine,  very  unattractive  in  its  exterior, 
dropped  on  to  the  page  he  is  perusing.  I  thought  at  first 
that  it  was  a  present  from  some  crazed  philanthropist,  who 
was  thus  endeavoring  to  disseminate  literature.  But  I  was 
soon  undeceived.  The  bookseller,  having  gone  down  the 
whole  car  and  the  next,  returned,  and  beginning  again 
where  he  had  begun  before,  picked  up  either  his  magazine 
or  else  the  price  of  it.  Then,  in  some  half  hour,  he  came 
again,  with  an  armful  or  basket  of  books,  and  distributed 
them  in  the  same  way.  They  were  generally  novels,  but 
not  always.  I  do  not  think  that  any  endeavor  is  made  to 
assimilate  the  book  to  the  expected  customer.  The  object 
is  to  bring  the  book  and  the  man  together,  and  in  this  way 
a  very  large  sale  is  effected.  The  same  thing  is  done  with 
illustrated  newspapers.  The  sale  of  political  newspapers 
goes  on  so  quickly  in  these  cars  that  no  such  enforced  dis- 
tribution is  necessary.  I  should  say  that  the  average  con- 
sumption of  newspapers  by  an  American  must  amount  to 
about  three  a  day.  At  Washington  I  begged  the  keeper 
of  my  lodgings  to  let  me  have  a  paper  regularly — one 


EDUCATION. 


303 


American  newspaper  being  much  the  same  to  me  as  another 
— and  my  host  supplied  me  daily  with  four. 

But  the  numbers  of  the  popular  books  of  the  day,  printed 
and  sold,  afford  the  most  conclusive  proof  of  the  extent  to 
which  education  is  carried  in  the  States.  The  readers  of 
Tennyson,  Mackay,  Dickens,  Bulwer,  Collins,  Hughes,  and 
Martin  Tupper  are  to  be  counted  by  tens  of  thousands  in 
the  States,  to  the  thousands  by  which  they  may  be  counted 
in  our  own  islands.  I  do  not  doubt  that  I  had  fully  fifteen 
copies  of  the  Silver  Cord"  thrown  at  my  head  in  different 
railway  cars  on  the  continent  of  America.  Nor  is  the  taste 
by  any  means  confined  to  the  literature  of  England.  Long- 
fellow, Curtis,  Holmes,  Hawthorne,  Lowell,  Emerson,  and 
Mrs.  Stowe  are  almost  as  popular  as  their  English  rivals. 
I  do  not  say  whether  or  no  the  literature  is  well  chosen, 
but  there  it  is.  It  is  printed,  sold,  and  read.  The  disposal 
of  ten  thousand  copies  of  a  work  is  no  large  sale  in  America 
of  a  book  published  at  a  dollar ;  but  in  England  it  is  a  very 
large  sale  of  a  book  brought  out  at  five  shillings. 

I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  examined  the  rooms  of  an 
iimerican  without  finding  books  or  magazines  in  them.  I 
do  not  speak  here  of  the  houses  of  my  friends,  as  of  course 
the  same  remark  would  apply  as  strongly  in  England;  but 
of  the  houses  of  persons  presumed  to  earn  their  bread  by 
the  labor  of  their  hands.  The  opportunity  for  such  exam- 
ination does  not  come  daily;  but  when  it  has  been  in  my 
power  I  have  made  it,  and  have  always  found  signs  of  edu- 
cation. Men  and  women  of  the  classes  to  which  I  allude 
talk  of  reading  and  writing  as  of  arts  belonging  to  them  as 
a  matter  of  course,  quite  as  much  as  are  the  arts  of  eating 
and  drinking.  A  porter  or  a  farmer's  servant  in  the  States 
is  not  proud  of  reading  and  writing.  It  is  to  him  quite  a 
matter  of  course.  The  coachmen  on  their  boxes  and  the 
boots  as  they  set  in  the  halls  of  the  hotels  have  newspapers 
constantly  in  their  hands.  The  young  women  have  them 
also,  and  the  children.  The  fact  comes  home  to  one  at 
every  turn,  and  at  every  hour,  that  the  people  are  an  edu- 
cated people.  The  whole  of  this  question  between  North 
and  South  is  as  well  understood  by  the  servants  as  by  their 
masters,  is  discussed  as  vehemently  by  the  private  soldiers 
as  by  the  officers.  The  politics  of  the  country  and  the 
nature  of  its  Constitution  are  familiar  to  every  laborer. 
The  very  wording  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  is 


304 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


in  the  memory  of  every  lad  of  sixteen.  Boys  and  girls  of 
a  younger  age  than  that  know  why  Slidell  and  Mason  were 
arrested,  and  will  tell  you  why  they  should  have  been  given 
up,  or  why  they  should  have  been  held  in  durance.  The 
question  of  the  war  with  England  is  debated  by  every  native 
pavior  and  hodman  of  New  York. 

I  know  what  Englishmen  will  say  in  answer  to  this.  They 
will  declare  that  they  do  not  want  their  paviors  and  hod- 
men to  talk  politics ;  that  they  are  as  well  pleased  that  their 
coachmen  and  cooks  should  not  always  have  a  newspaper  in 
their  hands;  that  private  soldiers  will  fight  as  well,  and 
obey  better,  if  they  are  not  trained  to  disouss  the  causes 
which  have  brought  them  into  the  field.  An  English  gen- 
tleman will  think  that  his  gardener  will  be  a  better  gardener 
without  than  with  any  excessive  political  ardor,  and  the 
English  lady  will  prefer  that  her  housemaid  shall  not  have 
a  very  pronounced  opinion  of  her  own  as  to  the  capabilities 
of  the  cabinet  ministers.  But  I  would  submit  to  all  Eng- 
lishmen and  English  women  who  may  look  at  these  pages 
whether  such  an  opinion  or  feeling  on  their  part  bears  much, 
or  even  at  all,  upon  the  subject.  I  am  not  saying  that  the 
man  who  is  driven  in  the  coach  is  better  off  because  his 
coachman  reads  the  paper,  but  that  the  coachman  himself 
who  reads  the  paper  is  better  off  than  the  coachman  who 
does  not  and  cannot.  I  think  that  we  are  too  apt,  in  con- 
sidering the  ways  and  habits  of  any  people,  to  judge  of 
them  by  the  effect  of  those  ways  and  habits  on  us,  rather 
than  by  their  effects  on  the  owners  of  them.  When  we  go 
among  garlic  eaters,  we  condemn  them  because  they  are 
offensive  to  us;  but  to  judge  of  them  properly  we  should 
ascertain  whether  or  no  the  garlic  be  offensive  to  them.  If 
we  could  imagine  a  nation  of  vegetarians  hearing  for  the 
first  time  ot  our  habits  as  flesh  eaters,  we  should  feel  sure 
that  they  would  be  struck  with  horror  at  our  blood-stained 
banquets ;  but  when  they  came  to  argue  with  us,  we  should 
bid  them  inquire  whether  we  flesh  eaters  did  not  live  longer 
and  do  more  than  the  vegetarians.  When  we  express  a  dis- 
like to  the  shoeboy  reading  his  newspaper,  I  api)rehend  we  do 
so  because  we  fear  that  the  shoeboy  is  coming  near  our  own 
heels,  I  know  there  is  among  us  a  strong  feeling  that  the 
lower  classes  are  better  without  politics,  as  there  is  also 
that  they  are  better  without  crinoline  and  artificial  flowers; 
but  if  politics,  and  crinoline,  and  artificial  flowers  are  good 


EDUCATION. 


305 


at  all,  they  are  good  for  all  who  can  honestly  come  by  them 
and  honestly  use  them.  The  political  coachman  is  perhaps 
less  valuable  to  his  master  as  a  coacliman  than  he  would  be 
without  his  politics,  but  he  with  his  politics  is  more  valuable 
to  himself.  For  myself,  I  do  not  like  the  Americans  of  the 
lower  orders.  I  am  not  comfortable  among  tliem.  They 
tread  on  my  corns  and  offend  me.  They  make  my  daily  life 
unpleasant.  But  I  do  respect  them.  I  acknowledge  their 
intelligence  and  personal  dignity.  I  know  that  they  are 
men  and  women  worthy  to  be  so  called ;  I  see  that  they  are 
living  as  human  beings  in  possession  of  reasoning  faculties; 
and  I  perceive  that  they  owe  this  to  the  progress  that  edu- 
cation has  made  among  them. 

After  all,  what  is  wanted  in  this  world  ?  Is  it  not  that 
men  should  eat  and  drink,  and  read  and  write,  and  say  their 
prayers  ?  Does  not  that  include  everything,  providing  that 
they  eat  and  drink  enough,  read  and  write  without  restraint, 
and  say  their  prayers  without  hypocrisy  ?  When  we  talk 
of  the  advances  of  civilization,  do  we  mean  anything  but 
this,  that  men  who  now  eat  and  drink  badly  shall  eat  and 
drink  well,  and  that  those  who  cannot  read  and  write  now 
shall  learn  to  do  so — the  prayers  following,  as  prayers  will 
follow  upon  such  learning  ?  Civilization  does  not  consist 
in  the  eschewing  of  garlic  or  the  keeping  clean  of  a  man's 
finger-nails.  It  may  lead  to  such  delicacies,  and  probably 
will  do  so.  But  the  man  who  thinks  that  civilization  can- 
not exist  without  them  imagines  that  the  church  cannot 
stand  without  the  spire.  In  the  States  of  America  men  do 
eat  and  drink,  and  do  read  and  write. 

But  as  to  saying  their  prayers  ?  That,  as  far  as  I  can 
see,  has  come  also,  though  perhaps  not  in  a  manner  alto- 
gether satisfactory,  or  to  a  degree  which  should  be  held  to 
be  sufficient.  Englishmen  of  strong  religious  fec-ing  will 
often  be  startled  in  America  by  the  freedom  with  which 
religious  subjects  are  discussed,  and  the  ease  with  which 
the  matter  is  treated ;  but  he  will  very  rarely  be  shocked  by 
that  utter  absence  of  all  knowledge  on  the  subject — that 
total  darkness  which  is  still  so  common  among  the  lower 
orders  in  our  own  country.  It  is  not  a  common  thing  to 
meet  an  American  who  belongs  to  no  denomination  of  Chris- 
tian worship,  and  who  cannot  tell  you  why  he  belongs  to 
that  which  he  has  chosen. 

"But,"  it  will  be  said,  "all  the  intelligence  and  education 
26* 


30G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


of  this  people  have  not  saved  them  from  falling  out  among 
themselves  and  tiieir  friends,  and  running  into  troubles  by 
which  they  will  be  ruined.  Their  political  arrangements 
have  been  so  bad  that,  in  spite  of  all  their  reading  and 
writing,  they  must  go  to  the  wail."  I  venture  to  express  an 
opinion  that  they  will  by  no  means  go  to  the  wall,  and  that 
they  will  be  saved  from  such  a  destiny,  if  in  no  other  way, 
then  by  their  education.  Of  their  political  arrangements, 
as  I  mean  before  long  to  rush  into  that  perilous  subject,  I 
will  say  nothing  here.  But  no  political  convulsions,  should 
such  arise — no  revolution  in  the  Constitution,  should  such 
be  necessary — will  have  any  wide  effect  on  the  social  posi- 
tion of  the  people  to  their  serious  detriment.  They  have 
the  great  qualities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race — industry,  in- 
telligence, and  self-confidence  ;  and  if  these  qualities  will 
no  longer  suffice  to  keep  such  a  people  on  their  legs,  the 
world  must  be  coming  to  an  end. 

I  have  said  that  it  is  not  a  common  thing  to  meet  an 
American  who  belongs  to  no  denomination  of  Christian 
worship.  This  I  think  is  so ;  but  1  would  not  wish  to  be 
taken  as  saying  that  religion,  on  that  account,  stands  on  a 
satisfactory  footing  in  the  States.  Of  all  subjects  of  discus- 
sion, this  is  the  most  difficult.  It  is  one  as  to  which  most  of 
us  feel  that  to  some  extent  we  must  trust  to  our  prejudices 
rather  than  our  judgments.  It  is  a  matter  on  which  we  do 
not  dare  to  rely  implicitly  on  our  own  reasoning  faculties, 
and  therefore  throw  ourselves  on  the  opinions  of  those  whom 
we  believe  to  have  been  better  men  and  deeper  thinkers 
than  ourselves.  For  myself,  I  love  the  name  of  State  and 
Church,  and  believe  that  much  of  our  English  well-being 
has  depended  on  it.  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  think  that 
union  good,  and  am  not  to  be  turned  away  from  that  convic- 
tion. Nevertheless  I  am  not  prepared  to  argue  the  matter. 
One  does  not  always  carry  one's  proof  at  one's  finger  ends. 

But  I  feel  very  strongly  that  much  of  that  which  is  evil 
in  the  structure  of  American  politics  is  owing  to  the  absence 
of  any  national  religion,  and  that  something  also  of  social 
evil  has  sprung  from  the  same  cause.  It  is  not  that  men  do 
not  say  their  prayers.  For  aught  I  know,  they  may  do  so 
as  frequently  and  as  fervently,  or  more  frequently  and  more 
fervently,  than  we  do  ;  but  there  is  a  rowdiness,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  to  use  such  a  word,  in  their  manner  of  doing  so 
which  robs  religion  of  that  reverence  which  is,  if  not  its 


RELIGION. 


307 


essence,  at  any  rate  its  chief  protection.  It  is  a  part  of 
their  system  that  religion  shall  be  perfectly  free,  and  that  no 
man  shall  be  in  any  way  constrained  in  that  matter.  Con- 
sequently, the  question  of  a  man's  religion  is  regarded  in  a 
free-and-easy  way.  It  is  well,  for  instance,  that  a  young  lad 
should  go  somewhere  on  a  Sunday ;  but  a  sermon  is  a  ser- 
mon, and  it  does  not  much  concern  the  lad's  father  whether 
his  son  hear  the  discourse  of  a  freethinker  in  the  music-hall, 
or  the  eloquent  but  lengthy  outpouring  of  a  preacher  in  a 
Methodist  chapel.  Everybody  is  bound  to  have  a  religion, 
but  it  does  not  much  matter  what  it  is. 

The  difficulty  in  which  the  first  fathers  of  the  Revolution 
found  themselves  on  this  question  is  shown  by  the  constitu- 
tions of  the  different  States.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  inhabitants  of  the  New  England  States  were,  as  things 
went,  a  strictly  religious  community.  They  had  no  idea  of 
throwing  over  the  worship  of  God,  as  the  French  had 
attempted  to  do  at  their  revolution.  They  intended  that 
the  new  nation  should  be  pre-eminently  composed  of  a  God- 
fearing people;  but  they  intended  also  that  they  should  be 
a  people  free  in  everything — free  to  choose  their  own  forms 
of  worship.  They  intended  that  the  nation  should  be  a 
Protestant  people;  but  they  intended  also  that  no  man's 
conscience  should  he  coerced  in  the  matter  of  his  own  reli- 
gion. It  was  hard  to  reconcile  these  two  things,  and  to 
explain  to  the  citizens  that  it  behooved  them  to  worship 
God — even  under  penalties  for  omission;  but  that  it  was  at 
the  same  time  open  to  them  to  select  any  form  of  worship 
that  they  pleased,  however  that  form  might  differ  from  the 
practices  of  the  majority.  In  Connecticut  it  is  declared  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  all  men  to  worship  the  Supreme  Being,  the 
Creator  and  Preserver  of  the  universe,  but  that  it  is  their 
right  to  render  that  worship  in  the  mode  most  consistent 
with  the  dictates  of  their  consciences.  And  then,  a  few  lines 
further  down,  the  article  skips  the  great  difficulty  in  a  manner 
somewhat  disingenuous,  and  declares  that  each  and  every 
society  of  Christians  in  the  State  shall  have  and  enjoy  the 
same  and  equal  privileges.  But  it  does  not  say  whether  a 
Jew  shall  be  divested  of  those  privileges,  or,  if  he  be 
divested,  how  that  treatment  of  him  is  to  be  reconciled  with 
the  assurance  that  it  is  every  man's  right  to  worship  the 
Supreme  Being  in  the  mode  most  consistent  with  the  dic- 
tates of  his  own  conscience. 


308 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


In  Rhode  Island  they  were  more  honest.  It  is  there  de- 
clared that  every  man  shall  be  free  to  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience,  and  to  profess  and 
by  argument  to  maintain  his  opinion  in  matters  of  religion; 
and  that  the  same  shall  in  nowise  diminish,  enlarge,  or 
affect  his  civil  capacity.  Here  it  is  simply  presumed  that 
every  man  will  worship  a  God,  and  no  allusion  is  made  even 
to  Christianity. 

In  Massachusetts  they  are  again  hardly  honest.  "It  is 
the  right,"  says  the  constitution,  "as  well  as  the  duty  of  all 
men  in  society  publicly  and  at  stated  seasons  to  worship  the 
Supreme  Being,  the  Great  Creator  and  Preserver  of  the 
universe."  And  then  it  goes  on  to  say  that  every  man  may 
do  so  in  what  form  he  pleases;  but  further  down  it  declares 
that  "every  denomination  of  Christians,  demeaning  them- 
selves peaceably  and  as  good  subjects  of  the  commonwealth, 
shall  be  equally  under  the  protection  of  the  law."  But 
what  about  those  who  are  not  Christians  ?  In  New  Hamp- 
shire it  is  exactly  the  same.  It  is  enacted  chat  "every 
individual  has  a  natural  and  unalienable  right  to  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience  and 
reason."  And  that  "every  denomination  of  Christians, 
demeaning  themselves  quietly  and  as  good  citizens  of  the 
State,  shall  be  equally  under  the  protection  of  the  law." 
From  all  which  it  is,  I  think,  manifest  that  the  men  who 
framed  these  documents,  desirous  above  all  things  of  cutting 
themselves  and  their  people  loose  from  every  kind  of  tram- 
mel, still  felt  the  necessity  of  enforcing  religion — of  making 
it,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  matter  of  State  duty.  In  the  first 
constitution  of  North  Carolina  it  is  enjoined  "that  no 
person  who  shall  deny  the  being  of  God,  or  the  truth  of  the 
Protestant  religion,  shall  be  capable  of  holding  any  office 
or  place  of  trust  or  profit."  But  this  was  altered  in  the 
year  1836,  and  the  words  "Christian  religion"  were  substi- 
tuted for  "Protestant  religion." 

In  New  England  the  Congregationalists  are,  I  think,  the 
dominant  sect.  In  Massachusetts,  and  I  believe  in  the  other 
New  England  States,  a  man  is  presumed  to  be  a  Congrega- 
tionalist  if  he  do  not  declare  himself  to  be  anything  else; 
as  with  us  the  Church  of  England  counts  all  who  do  not 
specially  have  themselves  counted  elsewhere.  The  Congre- 
gationalist,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  is  very  near  to  a  Presby- 
terian. In  New  England  I  think  the  Unitarians  would  rank 


RELIGION. 


309 


next  in  number ;  but  a  Unitarian  in  America  is  not  the  same 
as  a  Unitarian  with  us.  Here,  if  I  understand  the  nature 
of  his  creed,  a  Unitarian  does  not  recognize  the  divinity  of 
our  Saviour.  In  America  he  does  do  so,  but  throws  over 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  The  Protestant  Episcopalians 
muster  strong  in  all  the  great  cities,  and  I  fancy  that  they 
would  be  regarded  as  taking  the  lead  of  the  other  religious 
denominations  in  New  York,  Their  tendency  is  to  high- 
church  doctrines.  I  wish  they  had  not  found  it  necessary 
to  alter  the  forms  of  our  prayer-book  in  so  many  little 
matters,  as  to  which  there  was  no  national  expediency  for 
such  changes.  But  it  was  probably  thought  necessary  that 
a  new  people  should  show  their  independence  in  all  things. 
The  Roman  Catholics  have  a  very  strong  party— as  a  matter 
of  course.— seeing  how  great  has  been  the  emigration  from 
Ireland ;  but  here,  as  in  Ireland— and  as  indeed  is  the  case 
all  the  world  over — the  Roman  Catholics  are  the  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water.  The  Germans,  who  have  lat- 
terly flocked  into  the  States  in  such  swarms  that  they  have 
almost  Germanized  certain  States,  have,  of  course,  their  own 
churches.  In  every  town  there  are  places  of  worship  for 
Baptists,  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  Anabaptists,  and  every 
denomination  of  Christianity ;  and  the  meeting-houses  pre- 
pared for  these  sects  are  not,  as  with  us,  hideous  buildings, 
contrived  to  inspire  disgust  by  the  enormity  of  their  ugli- 
ness, nor  are  they  called  Salem,  Ebenezer,  and  Sion,  nor  do 
the  ministers  within  them  look  in  any  way  like  the  Deputy- 
Shepherd.  The  churches  belonging  to  those  sects  are  often 
handsome.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  New  York,  and 
the  pastors  are  not  unfrequently  among  the  best  educated 
and  most  agreeable  men  whom  the  traveler  will  meet.  They 
are  for  the  most  part  well  paid,  and  are  enabled  by  their 
outward  position  to  hold  that  place  in  the  world's  ranks 
which  should  always  belong  to  a  clergyman.  I  have  not 
been  able  to  obtain  information  from  which  I  can  state  with 
anything  like  correctness  what  may  be  the  average  income 
of  ministers  of  the  Gospel  in  the  Northern  States ;  but  that 
it  is  much  higher  than  the  average  income  of  our  parish 
clergymen,  admits,  I  think,  of  no  doubt.  The  stipends  of 
clergymen  in  the  American  towns  are  higher  than  those  paid 
in  the  country.  The  opposite  to  this,  I  think,  as  a  rule,  is 
the  case  with  us. 


310 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  have  said  that  religion  in  the  States  is  rowdy.  By  that 
I  mean  to  imply  that  it  seems  to  me  to  be  divested  of  tliat 
reverential  order  and  strictness  of  rule  which,  according  to 
our  ideas,  should  be  attached  to  matters  of  religion.  One 
hardly  knows  where  the  affairs  of  this  world  end,  or  where 
those  of  the  next  begin.  When  the  holy  men  were  had  in 
at  the  lecture,  were  they  doing  stage-work  or  church-work  ? 
On  hearing  sermons,  one  is  often  driven  to  ask  one's  self 
whether  the  discourse  from  the  pulpit  be  in  its  nature 
political  or  religious.  I  heard  an  Episcopalian  Protestant 
clergyman  talk  of  the  scoffing  nations  of  Europe,  because 
at  that  moment  he  was  angry  with  England  and  France 
about  Slidell  and  Mason.  I  have  heard  a  chapter  of  the 
Bible  read  in  Congress  at  the  desire  of  a  member,  and  very 
badly  read.  After  which  the  chapter  itself  and  the  reading 
of  it  became  a  subject  of  debate,  partly  jocose  and  partly 
acrimonious.  It  is  a  common  thing  for  a  clergyman  to 
change  his  profession  and  follow  any  other  pursuit.  I  know 
two  or  three  gentlemen  who  were  once  in  that  line  of  life, 
but  have  since  gone  into  other  trades.  There  is,  I  think, 
an  unexpressed  determination  on  the  part  of  the  people  to 
abandon  all  reverence,  and  to  regard  religion  from  an  alto- 
gether worldly  point  of  view.  They  are  willing  to  have 
religion,  as  they  are  williug  to  have  laws;  but  they  choose 
to  make  it  for  themselves.  They  do  not  object  to  pay  for 
it,  but  they  like  to  have  the  handling  of  the  article  for 
which  they  pay.  As  the  descendants  of  Puritans  and  other 
godly  Protestants,  they  will  submit  to  religious  teaching, 
but  as  republicans  they  will  have  no  priestcraft.  The 
French  at  their  revolution  had  the  latter  feeling  without 
the  former,  and  were  therefore  consistent  with  themselves 
in  abolishing  all  worship.  The  Americans  desire  to  do  the 
same  thing  politically,  but  infidelity  has  had  no  charms  for 
them.  They  say  their  prayers,  and  then  seem  to  apologize 
for  doing  so,  as  though  it  were  hardly  the  act  of  a  free  and 
enlightened  citizen,  justified  in  ruling  himself  as  he  pleases. 
All  this  to  me  is  rowdy.  I  know  no  other  word  by  which  I 
can  so  well  describe  it. 

Nevertheless  the  nation  is  religious  in  its  tendencies,  and 
prone  to  acknowledge  the  goodness  of  God  in  all  things. 
A  man  there  is  expected  to  belong  to  some  church,  and  is 
not,  I  think,  well  looked  on  if  he  profess  that  he  belongs  to 


FROM  BOSTON  TO  WASHINGTON.  311 

none.  He  may  be  a  Swedenborgian,  a  Quaker,  a  Muggle- 
toniaii, — anything  will  do.  But  it  is  expected  of  him  that 
he  shall  place  himself  under  some  flag,  and  do  his  share  in 
supporting  the  flag  to  which  he  belongs.  This  duty  is,  I 
think,  generally  fulfilled. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

FROxM  BOSTON  TO  WASHINGTON. 

From  Boston,  on  the  21th  of  November,  my  wife  re- 
turned to  England,  leaving  me  to  prosecute  my  journey 
southward  to  Washington  by  myself.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  political  feeling  which  prevailed  in  Boston  at  that  time, 
or  the  discussions  on  the  subject  of  Slidell  and  Mason,  in 
which  I  felt  myself  bound  to  take  a  part.  Up  to  that 
period  I  confess  that  my  sympathies  had  been  strongly  with 
the  Northern  side  in  the  general  question ;  and  so  they 
were  still,  as  far  as  I  could  divest  the  matter  of  its  English 
bearings.  I  have  always  thought,  and  do  think,  that  a  war 
for  the  suppression  of  the  Southern  rebellion  could  not  have 
been  avoided  by  the  North  without  an  absolute  loss  of  its 
political  prestige.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  President  of 
the  United  States  in  the  autumn  of  1860,  and  any  steps 
taken  by  him  or  his  party  toward  a  peaceable  solution  of  the 
difficulties  which  broke  out  immediately  on  his  election 
must  have  been  taken  before  he  entered  upon  his  office. 
South  Carolina  threatened  secession  as  soon  as  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's election  was  known,  while  yet  there  were  four  months 
left  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  government.  That  Mr.  Buchanan 
might,  during  those  four  months,  have  prevented  secession, 
few  men,  I  think,  will  doubt  when  the  history  of  the  time 
shall  be  written.  But  instead  of  doing  so  he  consummated 
secession.  Mr.  Buchanan  is  a  Northern  man,  a  Pennsyl- 
vanian;  but  he  was  opposed  to  the  party  which  had  brought 
in  Mr.  Lincoln,  having  thriven  as  a  politician  by  his  ad- 
herence to  Southern  principles.    Now,  when  the  strugglo 


312 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


came,  he  could  not  forget  his  party  in  his  duty  as  President. 
General  Jackson's  position  was  much  the  same  when  Mr. 
Calhoun,  on  the  question  of  the  tariff,  endeavored  to  pro- 
duce secession  in  South  Carolina  thirty  years  ago,  in  1832 — 
excepting  in  this,  that  Jackson  was  himself  a  Southern  man. 
But  Jackson  had  a  strong  conception  of  the  position  which 
he  held  as  President  of  the  United  States.  He  put  his  foot 
on  secession  and  crushed  it,  forcing  Mr.  Calhoun,  as  Senator 
from  South  Carolina,  to  vote  for  that  compromise  as  to  the 
tariff  which  the  government  of  the  day  proposed.  South 
Carolina  was  as  eager  in  1832  for  secession  as  she  was 
in  1859-60;  but  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of  a 
strong  man  and  an  honest  one,  Mr.  Calhoun  would  have 
been  hung  had  he  carried  out  his  threats.  But  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan had  neither  the  power  nor  the  honesty  of  General 
Jackson,  and  thus  secession  was  in  fact  consummated  during 
his  Presidency. 

But  Mr.  Lincoln's  party,  it  is  said — and  I  believe  truly 
said — might  have  prevented  secession  by  making  overtures 
to  the  South,  or  accepting  overtures  from  the  South,  before 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  been  inaugurated.  That  is  to  say, 
if  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  band  of  politicians  who  with  him  had 
pushed  their  way  to  the  top  of  their  party,  and  were  about 
to  fill  the  offices  of  State,  chose  to  throw  overboard  the  po- 
litical convictions  which  had  bound  them  together  and  in- 
sured their  success — if  they  could  bring  themselves  to  adopt 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  the  ideas  of  their  opponents — then 
the  war  might  have  been  avoided,  and  secession  also  avoided. 
I  do  believe  that  had  Mr.  Lincoln  at  that  time  submitted 
himself  to  a  compromise  in  favor  of  the  Democrats,  promis- 
ing the  support  of  the  government  to  certain  acts  which 
would  in  fact  have  been  in  favor  of  slavery,  South  Carolina 
would  again  have  been  foiled  for  the  time.  For  it  must  be 
understood,  that  though  South  Carolina  and  the  Gulf  States 
might  have  accepted  certain  compromises,  they  would  not 
hjave  been  satisfied  in  so  accepting  them.  The  desired  seces- 
sion, and  nothing  short  of  secession,  would  in  truth  have 
been  acceptable  to  them.  But  in  doing  so  Mr,  Lincoln 
would  have  been  the  most  dishonest  politician  even  in 
America.  The  North  would  have  been  in  arms  against 
him  ;  and  any  true  spirit  of  agreement  between  the  cotton- 
growing  slave  States  and  the  manufacturing  States  of  the 
North,  or  the  agricultural  States  of  the  West,  would  have 


MR.  CRITTENDEN'S  COMPROMISE.  313 

been  as  far  off  and  as  improbable  as  it  is  now.  Mr.  Crit- 
tenden, who  proffered  his  compromise  to  the  Senate  in 
December,  18G0,  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  two  Senators 
from  Kentucky,  a  slave  State.  He  now  sits  in  the  Lower 
House  of  Congress  as  a  member  from  the  same  State. 
Kentucky  is  one  of  those  border  States  which  has  found  it 
impossible  to  secede,  and  almost  equally  impossible  to  re- 
main in  the  Union.  It  is  one  of  the  States  into  which  it 
was  most  probable  that  the  war  would  be  carried — Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri  being  the  three  States  which  have 
suffered  the  most  in  this  way.  Of  Mr.  Crittenden's  own 
family,  some  have  gone  with  secession  and  some  with  the 
Union.  His  name  had  been  honorably  connected  with 
American  politics  for  nearly  forty  years,  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  he  should  have  desired  a  compromise.  His 
terms  were  in  fact  these — a  return  to  the  Missouri  compro- 
mise, under  which  the  Union  pledged  itself  that  no  slavery 
should  exist  north  of  36 '30°  N.  lat.,  unless  where  it  had  so 
existed  prior  to  the  date  of  that  compromise  ;  a  pledge  that 
Congress  would  not  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  individual 
States — which  under  the  Constitution  it  cannot  do  ;  and  a 
pledge  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  should  be  carried  out 
by  the  Northern  States.  Such  a  compromise  might  seem 
to  make  very  small  demand  on  the  forbearance  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  which  was  now  dominant.  The  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  had  been  to  them  a  loss,  and  it  might 
be  said  that  its  re-enactment  would  be  a  gain.  But  since 
that  compromise  had  been  repealed,  vast  territories  south 
of  the  line  in  question  had  been  added  to  the  Union,  and 
the  re-enactment  of  that  compromise  would  hand  those  vast 
regions  over  to  absolute  slavery,  as  had  been  done  with 
Texas.  This  might  be  all  very  well  for  Mr.  Crittenden  in 
the  slave  State  of  Kentucky — for  Mr.  Crittenden,  although 
a  slave  owner,  desired  to  perpetuate  the  Union  ;  but  it 
would  not  have  been  well  for  New  England  or  for  the 
"West.  As  for  the  second  proposition,  it  is  well  understood 
that  under  the  Constitution  Congress  cannot  interfere  in  any 
way  in  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  individual  States. 
Congress  has  no  more  constitutional  power  to  abolish 
slavery  in  Maryland  than  she  has  to  introduce  it  into  Mas- 
sachusetts. No  such  pledge,  therefore,  was  necessary  on 
either  side.  But  such  a  pledge  given  by  the  North  and 
West  would  have  acted  as  an  additional  tie  upon  them, 

27 


314 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


binding  them  to  the  finality  of  a  constitutional  enactment  to 
which,  as  was  of  course  well  known,  they  strongly  object. 
There  was  no  question  of  Congress  interfering  with  slavery, 
with  the  purport  of  extending  its  area  by  special  enactment, 
and  therefore  by  such  a  pledge  the  North  and  West  could 
gain  nothing  ;  but  the  South  would  in  prestige  have  gained 
much. 

But  that  third  proposition  as  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
and  the  faithful  execution  of  that  law  by  the  Northern  and 
Western  States  would,  if  acceded  to  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  party, 
have  amounted  to  an  unconditional  surrender  of  everything. 
What !  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  carry  out  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law  ?  Ohio  carry  out  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
after  the  "Dred  Scott"  decision  and  all  its  consequences? 
Mr.  Crittenden  might  as  well  have  asked  Connecticut,  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  Ohio  to  introduce  slavery  within  their  own 
lands.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  the 
law  of  the  land  ;  it  was  the  law  of  the  United  States  as 
voted  by  Congress,  and  passed  by  the  President,  and  acted 
on  by  the  supreme  judge  of  the  United  States  Court.  But 
it  was  a  law  to  which  no  free  State  had  submitted  itself,  or 
would  submit  itself.  "What!"  the  English  reader  will 
say,  "  sundry  States  in  the  Union  refuse  to  obey  the  laws 
of  the  Union — refuse  to  submit  to  the  constitutional  action 
of  their  own  Congress?"  Yes.  Such  has  been  the  position 
of  this  country  !  To  such  a  dead  lock  has  it  been  brought 
by  the  attempted  but  impossible  amalgamation  of  North 
and  South.  Mr.  Crittenden's  compromise  was  moonshine. 
It  was  utterly  out  of  the  question  that  the  free  States  should 
bind  themselves  to  the  rendition  of  escaped  slaves,  or  that 
Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  just  been  brought  in  by  their  voices, 
should  agree  to  any  compromise  which  should  attempt  so  to 
bind  them.  Lord  Palmerston  might  as  well  attempt  to  re- 
enact  the  Corn  Laws. 

Then  comes  the  question  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  or  his  gov- 
ernment could  have  prevented  the  war  after  he  had  entered 
upon  his  office  in  March,  1861  ?  I  do  not  suppose  that  any 
one  thinks  that  he  could  have  avoided  secession  and  avoided 
the  war  also ;  that  by  any  ordinary  effort  of  government  he 
could  have  secured  the  adhesion  of  the  Gulf  States  to  the 
Union  after  the  first  shot  had  been  fired  at  Fort  Sumter. 
The  general  opinion  in  England  is,  I  take  it,  this — that  se- 
cession then  was  manifestly  necessary,  and  that  all  the  blood- 


COULD  THE  WAR  BE  PREVENTED? 


815 


slied  and  money-shed,  and  all  this  destruction  of  commerce 
and  of  agriculture  might  have  been  prevented  by  a  graceful 
adhesion  to  an  indisputable  fact.  But  there  are  some  facts, 
even  some  indisputable  facts,  to  which  a  graceful  adherence 
is  not  possible.  Could  King  Bomba  have  welcomed  Gari- 
baldi to  Naples?  Can  the  Pope  shake  hands  with  Victor 
Emmanuel  ?  Could  the  English  have  surrendered  to  their 
rebel  colonists  peaceable  possession  of  the  colonies  ?  The 
indisputability  of  a  fact  is  not  very  easily  settled  while  the 
circumstances  are  in  course  of  action  by  which  the  fact  is 
to  be  decided.  The  men  of  the  Northern  States  have  not 
believed  in  the  necessity  of  secession,  but  have  believed  it 
to  be  their  duty  to  enforce  the  adherence  of  these  States  to 
the  Union.  The  American  governments  have  been  much 
given  to  compromises,  but  had  Mr.  Lincoln  attempted  any 
compromise  by  which  any  one  Southern  State  could  have 
been  let  out  of  the  Union,  he  would  have  been  impeached. 
In  all  probability  the  whole  Constitution  would  have  gone 
to  ruin,  and  the  Presidency  would  have  been  at  an  end.  At 
any  rate,  his  Presidency  would  have  been  at  an  end.  When 
secession,  or  in  other  words  rebellion,  was  once  commenced, 
he  had  no  alternative  but  the  use  of  coercive  measures  for 
putting  it  down — that  is,  he  had  no  alternative  but  war. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  or  his  ministry  contem- 
plated such  a  war  as  has  existed  —  with  600,000  men  in 
arras  on  one  side,  each  man  with  his  whole  belongings  main- 
tained at  a  cost  of  150^.  per  annum,  or  ninety  millions  ster- 
ling per  annum  for  the  army.  Nor  did  we  when  we  resolved 
to  put  down  the  French  revolution  think  of  such  a  national 
debt  as  we  now  owe.  These  things  grow  by  degrees,  and 
the  mind  also  grows  in  becoming  used  to  them ;  but  I  can- 
not see  that  there  was  any  moment  at  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
could  have  stayed  his  hand  and  cried  peace.  It  is  easy  to 
say  now  that  acquiescence  in  secession  would  have  been 
better  than  war,  but  there  has  been  no  moment  when  he 
could  have  said  so  with  any  avail.  It  was  incumbent  on 
him  to  put  down  rebellion,  or  to  be  put  down  by  it.  So  it 
was  with  us  in  America  in  1*176. 

I  do  not  think  that  we  in  England  have  quite  sufficiently 
taken  all  this  into  consideration.  We  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  exclaiming  very  loudly  against  the  war,  execrating 
its  cruelty  and  anathematizing  its  results,  as  though  the 
crueltyAvere  all  superfluous  and  the  results  unnecessary. 


316 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


But  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  any  statement  as  to 
what  the  Northern  States  should  have  done  —  what  they 
should  have  done,  thjat  is,  as  regards  the  South,  or  when 
they  should  have  done  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  de- 
cided as  regards  them  that  civil  war  is  a  very  bad  thing,  and 
that  therefore  civil  war  should  be  avoided.  But  bad  things 
cannot  always  be  avoided.  It  is  this  feeling  on  our  part 
that  has  produced  so  much  irritation  in  them  against  us — 
reproducing,  of  course,  irritation  on  our  part  against  them. 
They  cannot  understand  that  we  should  not  wish  them  to  be 
successful  in  putting  down  a  rebellion;  nor  can  we  under- 
stand why  they  should  be  outrageous  against  us  for  stand- 
ing aloof,  and  keeping  our  hands,  if  it  be  only  possible,  out 
of  the  fire. 

When  Slidell  and  Mason  were  arrested,  my  opinions  were 
not  changed,  but  my  feelings  were  altered.  I  seemed  to 
acknowledge  to  m3'self  that  the  treatment  to  which  England 
had  been  subjected,  and  the  manner  in  which  that  treatment 
was  discussed,  made  it  necessary  that  I  should  regard  the 
question  as  it  existed  between  England  and  the  States,  rather 
than  in  its  reference  to  the  North  and  South.  I  had  always 
felt  that  as  regarded  the  action  of  our  government  we  had 
been  sans  reproche;  that  in  arranging  our  conduct  we  had 
thought  neither  of  money  nor  political  influence,  but  simply 
of  the  justice  of  the  case — promising  to  abstain  from  all 
interference  and  keeping  that  promise  faithfully.  It  had 
been  quite  clear  to  me  that  the  men  of  the  North,  and  the 
women  also,  had  failed  to  appreciate  this,  looking,  as  men 
in  a  quarrel  always  do  look,  for  special  favor  on  their  side. 
Everything  that  England  did  was  wrong.  If  a  private 
merchant,  at  his  own  risk,  took  a  cargo  of  rifles  to  some 
Southern  port,  that  act  to  Northern  eyes  was  an  act  of 
English  interference — of  favor  shown  to  the  South  by  Eng- 
land as  a  nation;  but  twenty  shiploads  of  rifles  sent  from 
England  to  the  North  merely  signified  a  brisk  trade  and  a 
desire  for  profit.  The  ''James  Adger,"  a  Northern  man-of- 
war,  was  refitted  at  Southampton  as  a  matter  of  course. 
There  was  no  blame  to  England  for  that.  But  the  Nash- 
ville, belonging  to  the  Confederates,  should  not  have  been 
allowed  into  P^nglish  waters.  It  was  useless  to  speak  of 
neutrality.  No  Northerner  would  understand  that  a  rebel 
could  have  any  mutual  right.  The  South  had  no  claim  in 
his  eyes  as  a  belligerent,  though  the  North  claimed  all  those 


QUARREL  WITH  ENGLAND. 


rights  which  he  could  only  enjoy  by  the  fact  of  there  being 
a  recognized  war  between  him  and  his  enemy  the  South. 
The  North  was  learning  to  hate  England,  and  day  by  day 
the  feeling  grew  upon  me  that,  much  as  I  wished  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  the  North,  I  should  have  to  espouse  the  cause 
of  my  own  country.  Then  Slidell  and  Mason  were  ar- 
rested, and  I  began  to  calculate  how  long  I  might  remain 
in  the  country.  "There  is  no  danger.  We  are  quite 
right,"  the  lawyers  said.  "There  are  Yattel,  and  Puffen- 
dorflf,  and  Stowell,  and  Phillimore,  and  Wheaton,"  said  the 
ladies.  "Ambassadors  are  contraband  all  the  world  over — 
more  so  than  gunpowder;  and  if  taken  in  a  neutral  bot- 
tom," etc.  I  wonder  why  ships  are  always  called  bottoms 
when  spoken  of  with  legal  technicality?  But  neither  the 
lawyers  nor  the  ladies  convinced  me.  I  know  that  there 
are  matters  which  will  be  read  not  in  accordance  with  any 
written  law,  but  in  accordance  with  the  bias  of  the  reader's 
mind.  Such  laws  are  made  to  be  strained  any  way.  I 
knew  how  it  would  be.  All  the  legal  acumen  of  New  Eng- 
land declared  the  seizure  of  Slidell  and  Mason  to  be  right. 
The  legal  acumen  of  Old  England  has  declared  it  to  be 
wrong ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  ladies  of  Old  England 
can  prove  it  to  be  wrong  out  of  Yattel,  Puffendorfif,  Stowell, 
Phillimore,  and  Wheaton. 

"But  there's  Grotius,"  I  said,  to  an  elderly  female  at 
New  York,  who  had  quoted  to  me  some  half  dozen  writers 
on  international  law,  thinking  thereby  that  I  should  trump 
her  last  card.  "I've  looked  into  Grotius  too,"  said  she, 
"and  as  far  as  I  can  see,"  etc.  etc.  etc.  So  I  had  to  fall 
back  again  on  the  convictions  to  which  instinct  and  com- 
mon sense  had  brought  me.  I  never  doubted  for  a  moment 
that  those  convictions  would  be  supported  by  English 
lawyers. 

I  left  Boston  with  a  sad  feeling  at  my  heart  that  a  quar- 
rel was  imminent  between  England  and  the  States,  and 
that  any  such  quarrel  must  be  destructive  to  the  cause  of 
the  North.  I  had  never  believed  that  the  States  of  New 
England  and  the  Gulf  States  would  again  become  parts  of 
one  nation,  but  I  had  thought  that  the  terms  of  separation 
would  be  dictated  by  the  North,  and  not  by  the  South.  I 
had  felt  assured  that  South  Carolina  and  the  Gulf  States, 
across  from  the  Atlantic  to  Texas,  would  succeed  in  form- 
ing themselves  into  a  separate  confederation;  but  I  had 

2T* 


318 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


still  hoped  that  Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Mis- 
souri might  be  saved  to  the  grander  empire  of  the  North, 
and  that  thus  a  great  blow  to  slavery  might  be  the  con- 
sequence of  this  civil  war.  But  such  ascendency  could 
only  fall  to  the  North  by  reason  of  their  command  of  the 
sea.  The  Northern  ports  were  all  open,  and  the  Southern 
ports  were  all  closed.  But  if  this  should  be  reversed.  If 
by  England's  action  the  Southern  ports  should  be  opened, 
and  the  Northern  ports  closed,  the  North  could  have  no 
fair  expectation  of  success.  The  ascendency  in  that  case 
would  all  be  with  the  South.  Up  to  that  moment — the 
Christmas  of  1861 — Maryland  was  kept  in  subjection  by  the 
guns  which  General  Dix  had  planted  over  the  City  of  Balti- 
more.- Two-thirds  of  "Virginia  were  in  active  rebellion, 
coerced  originally  into  that  position  by  her  dependence  for 
the  sale  of  her  slaves  on  the  cotton  States.  Kentucky  was 
doubtful,  and  divided.  When  the  Federal  troops  prevailed, 
Kentucky  was  loyal;  when  the  Confederate  troops  pre- 
vailed, Kentucky  was  rebellious.  The  condition  in  Mis- 
souri was  much  the  same.  These  four  States,  by  two  of 
which  the  capital,  with  its  District  of  Columbia,  is  sur- 
rounded, might  be  gained  or  might  be  lost.  And  these 
four  States  are  susceptible  of  white  labor — as  much  so  as 
Ohio  and  Illinois — are  rich  in  fertility,  and  rich  also  in  all 
associations  which  must  be  dear  to  Americans.  Without 
Virginia,  Maryland,  and  Kentucky,  without  the  Potomac, 
the  Chesapeake,  and  Mount  Vernon,  the  North  would  in- 
deed be  shorn  of  its  glory !  But  it  seemed  to  be  in  the 
power  of  the  North  to  say  under  what  terms  secession 
should  take  place,  and  where  should  be  the  line.  A  Senator 
from  South  Carolina  could  never  again  sit  in  the  same 
chamber  with  one  from  Massachusetts ;  but  there  need  be 
no  such  bar  against  the  border  States.  So  much  might  at 
any  rate  be  gained,  and  might  stand  hereafter  as  the  pro- 
duct of  all  that  money  spent  on  600,000  soldiers.  But  if 
the  Northerners  should  now  elect  to  throw  themselves  into 
a  quarrel  with  England,  if  in  the  gratification  of  a  shame- 
less braggadocio  they  should  insist  on  doing  what  they 
liked,  not  only  with  their  own,  but  with  the  property  of  all 
others  also,  it  certainly  did  seem  as  though  utter  ruin  must 
await  their  cause.  With  England,  or  one  might  say  with 
Europe,  against  them,  secession  must  be  accomplished,  not 
on  Northern  terms,  but  on  terms  dictated  by  the  South. 


QUARREL  WITH  ENGLAND. 


319 


The  choice  was  then  for  them  to  make ;  and  jnst  at  that 
time  it  seemed  as  though  they  were  resolved  to  throw  away 
every  good  card  out  of  their  liand.  Such  had  been  the 
ministerial  wisdom  of  Mr.  Seward.  I  remember  hearing 
the  matter  discussed  in  easy  terms  by  one  of  the  United 
States  Senators.  ''Remember,  Mr.  Trollope,"  he  said  to 
me,  "we  don't  want  a  war  with  England.  If  the  clioice  is 
given  to  us,  we  had  rather  not  fight  England.  Fighting  is 
a  bad  thing.  But  remember  this  also,  Mr.  Trollope,  that 
if  the  matter  is  pressed  on  us,  we  have  no  great  objection. 
We  had  rather  not,  but  we  don't  care  much  one  way  or  the 
other."  What  one  individual  may  say  to  another  is  not  of 
much  moment,  but  tiiis  Senator  was  expressing  the  feelings 
of  his  constituents,  who  were  the  legislature  of  the  State 
from  whence  he  came.  He  was  expressing  the  general  idea 
on  the  subject  of  a  large  body  of  Americans.  It  was  not 
that  he  and  his  State  had  really  no  objection  to  the  war. 
Such  a  war  loomed  terribly  large  before  the  minds  of  them 
all.  They  know  it  to  be  fraught  with  the  saddest  con- 
sequences. It  was  so  regarded  in  the  mind  of  that  Sen- 
ator. But  the  braggadocio  could  not  be  omitted.  Had  he 
omitted  it,  he  would  have  been  untrue  to  his  constituency. 

When  I  left  Boston  for  Washington,  nothing  was  as  yet 
known  of  what  the  English  government  or  the  English 
lawyers  might  say.  This  was  in  the  first  week  in  Decem- 
ber, and  the  expected  voice  from  England  could  not  be 
heard  till  the  end  of  the  second  week.  It  was  a  period  of 
great  suspense,  and  of  great  sorrow  also  to  the  more  sober- 
minded  Americans.  To  me  the  idea  of  such  a  war  was 
terrible.  It  seemed  that  in  these  days  all  the  hopes  of  our 
youth  were  being  shattered.  That  poetic  turning  of  the 
sword  into  a  sickle,  which  gladdened  our  hearts  ten  or 
twelve  years  since,  had  been  clean  banished  from  men's 
minds.  To  belong  to  a  peace  party  was  to  be  either  a 
fanatic,  an  idiot,  or  a  driveler.  The  arts  of  war  had  be- 
come everything.  Armstrong  guns,  themselves  indestruct- 
ible but  capable  of  destroying  everything  within  sight, 
and  most  things  out  of  sight,  were  the  only  recognized  re- 
sults of  man's  inventive  faculties.  To  build  bigger,  stronger, 
and  more  ships  than  the  French  was  England's  glory.  To 
hit  a  speck  with  a  rifle  bullet  at  800  yards  distance  was  an 
Englishman's  first  duty.  The  proper  use  for  a  young  man's 
leisure  hours  was  the  practice  of  drilling.     All  this  had 


320 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


come  upon  us  with  very  quick  steps  since  the  beginning  of 
the  Russian  war.  But  if  fighting  must  needs  be  done,  one 
did  not  feel  special  grief  at  fighting  a  Russian.  That  the 
Indian  mutiny  should  be  put  down  was  a  matter  of  course. 
That  those  Chinese  rascals  should  be  forced  into  the  har- 
ness of  civilization  was  a  good  thing.  That  England  should 
be  as  strong  as  France — or,  perhaps,  if  possible  a  little 
stronger — recommended  itself  to  an  Englishman's  mind  as 
a  State  necessity.,  But  a  war  with  the  States  of  America ! 
In  thinking  of  it  I  began  to  believe  that  the  world  was 
going  backward.  Over  sixty  millions  sterling  of  stock — 
railway  stock  and  such  like — are  held  in  America  by  Eng- 
lishmen, and  the  chances  would  be  that  before  such  a  war 
could  be  finished  the  whole  of  that  would  be  confiscated. 
Family  connections  between  the  States  and  the  British  isles 
are  almost  as  close  as  between  one  of  those  islands  and 
another.  The  commercial  intercourse  between  the  two 
countries  has  given  bread  to  millions  of  Englishmen,  and  a 
break  in  it  would  rob  millions  of  their  bread.  These  peo- 
ple speak  our  language,  use  our  prayers,  read  our  books, 
are  ruled  by  our  laws,  dress  themselves  in  our  image,  are 
warm  with  our  blood.  They  have  all  our  virtues;  and  their 
vices  are  our  own  too,  loudly  as  we  call  out  against  them. 
They  are  our  sons  and  our  daughters,  the  source  of  our 
greatest  pride,  and  as  we  grow  old  they  should  be  the  staff 
of  our  age.  Such  a  war  as  we  should  now  wage  with  the 
States  would  be  an  unloosing  of  hell  upon  all  that  is  best 
upon  the  world's  surface.  If  in  such  a  war  we  beat  the 
Americans,  they  with  their  proud  stomachs  would  never 
forgive  us.  If  they  should  be  victors,  we  should  never 
forgive  ourselves.  I  certainly  could  not  bring  myself  to 
speak  of  it  with  the  equanimity  of  ray  friend  the  Senator. 

I  went  through  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  and  made  a 
short  visit  to  the  latter  town.  Philadelphia  seems  to  me  to 
have  thrown  off  its  Quaker  garb,  and  to  present  itself  to 
the  world  in  the  garments  ordinarily  assumed  by  large  cities 
— by  which  I  intend  to  express  my  opinion  that  the  Phila- 
delphians  are  not,  in  these  latter  days,  any  better  than  their 
neighbors.  I  am  not  sure  whether  in  some  respects  they 
may  not  perhaps  be  worse.  Quakers — Quakers  absolutely 
in  the  very  flesh  of  close  bonnets  and  brown  knee-breeches 
— are  still  to  be  seen  there  ;  but  they  are  not  numerous, 
and  would  not  strike  the  eye  if  one  did  not  specially  look 


PHILADELPHIA. 


321 


for  a  Quaker  at  Philadelphia.  It  is  a  large  town,  with  a 
very  large  hotel — there  are  no  doubt  half  a  dozen  large  ho- 
tels, but  one  of  them  is  specially  great — with  long,  straight 
streets,  good  shops  and  markets,  and  decent,  comfortable- 
looking  houses.  The  houses  of  Philadelphia  generally  are 
not  so  large  as  those  of  other  great  cities  in  the  States. 
They  are  more  modest  than  those  of  New  York,  and  less 
commodious  than  those  of  Boston.  Their  most  striking 
appendage  is  the  marble  steps  at  the  front  doors.  Two 
doors,  as  a  rule,  enjoy  one  set  of  steps,  on  the  outer  edges 
of  which  there  is  generally  no  parapet  or  raised  curb- stone. 
This,  to  my  eye,  gave  the  houses  an  unfinished  appearance 
— as  though  the  marble  ran  short,  and  no  further  expendi- 
ture could  be  made.  The  frost  came  when  I  was  there,  and 
then  all  these  steps  were  covered  up  in  wooden  cases. 

The  City  of  Philadelphia  lies  between  the  two  rivers,  the 
Delaware  and  the  Schuylkill.  Eight  chief  streets  run  from 
river  to  river,  and  twenty-four  principal  cross-streets  bi- 
sect the  eight  at  right  angles.  The  cross-streets  are  all 
called  by  their  numbers.  In  the  long  streets  the  num- 
bers of  the  houses  are  not  consecutive,  but  follow  the 
numbers  of  the  cross-streets ;  so  that  a  person  living  on 
Chestnut  Street  between  Tenth  Street  and  Eleventh  Street, 
and  ten  doors  from  Tenth  Street,  would  live  at  No.  1010. 
The  opposite  house  would  be  No.  1011.  It  thus  follows 
that  the  number  of  the  house  indicates  the  exact  block  of 
houses  in  which  it  is  situated,  I  do  not  like  the  right-an- 
gled building  of  these  towns,  nor  do  I  like  the  sound  of 
Twentieth  Street  and  Thirtieth  Street;  but  I  must  acknowl- 
edge that  the  arrangement  in  Philadelphia  has  its  conveni- 
ence. In  New  York  I  found  it  by  no  means  an  easy  thing 
to  arrive  at  the  desired  locality. 

They  boast  in  Philadelphia  that  they  have  half  a  million 
inhabitants.  If  this  be  taken  as  a  true  calculation,  Phila- 
delphia is  in  size  the  fourth  city  in  the  world — putting  out 
of  the  question  the  cities  of  China,  as  to  which  we  have 
heard  so  much  and  believe  so  little.  But  in  making  this 
calculation  the  citizens  include  the  population  of  a  district 
on  some  sides  ten  miles  distant  from  Philadelphia.  It  takes 
in  other  towns,  connected  with  it  by  railway  but  separated 
by  large  spaces  of  open  country.  American  cities  are  very 
proud  of  their  population ;  but  if  they  all  counted  in  this 


322 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


way,  there  would  soon  be  no  rural  population  left  at  all. 
There  is  a  very  fine  bank  at  Philadelphia,  and  Philadelphia 
is  a  town  somewhat  celebrated  in  its  banking  history.  My 
remarks  here,  however,  apply  simply  to  the  external  build- 
ing, and  not  to  its  internal  honesty  and  wisdom,  or  to  its 
commercial  credit. 

In  Philadelphia  also  stands  the  old  house  of  Congress — 
the  house  in  which  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  was 
held  previous  to  1800,  when  the  government  and  the  Con- 
gress with  it  were  moved  to  the  new  City  of  Washington. 
I  believe,  however,  that  the  first  Congress,  properly  so  called, 
was  assembled  at  New  York  in  1T89,  the  date  of  the  inau- 
guration of  the  first  President.  It  was,  however,  here  in 
this  building  at  Philadelphia  that  the  independence  of  the 
Union  was  declared  in  1776,  and  that  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  was  framed. 

Pennsylvania,  with  Philadelphia  for  its  capital,  was  once 
the  leading  State  of  the  Union,  leading  by  a  long  distance. 
At  the  end  of  the  last  century  it  beat  all  the  other  States 
in  population,  but  has  since  been  surpassed  by  New  York 
in  all  respects — in  population,  commerce,  wealth,  and  gen- 
eral activity.  Of  course  it  is  known  that  Pennsylvania  was 
granted  to  William  Penn,  the  Quaker,  by  Charles  II.  I 
cannot  completely  understand  what  was  the  meaning  of 
such  grants — how  far  they  implied  absolute  possession  in 
the  territory,  or  how  far  they  confirmed  simply  the  power 
of  settling  and  governing  a  colony.  In  this  case  a  very 
considerable  property  was  confirmed ;  as  the  claim  made 
by  Penn's  children,  after  Penn's  death,  was  bought  up  by 
the  commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  for  130,000/.,  which,  in 
those  days,  was  a  large  price  for  almost  any  landed  estate 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Pennsylvania  lies  directly  on  the  borders  of  slave  land,  be- 
ing immediately  north  of  Maryland.  Mason  and  Dixon's  line, 
of  which  we  hear  so  often,  and  which  was  first  established 
as  the  division  between  slave  soil  and  free  soil,  runs  between 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland.  The  little  State  of  Delaware, 
which  lies  between  Maryland  and  the  Atlantic,  is  also  tainted 
with  slavery,  but  the  stain  is  not  heavy  nor  indelible.  In  a 
population  of  a  hundred  and  twelve  thousand,  there  are  not 
two  thousand  slaves,  and  of  these  the  owners  generally  would 
willingly  rid  themselves  if  they  could.    It  is,  however,  a 


LIVE  SECESSIONISTS. 


323 


point  of  honor  with  these  owners,  as  it  is  also  in  Maryland, 
not  to  sell  their  slaves ;  and  a  man  who  cannot  sell  his  slaves 
must  keep  them.  Were  he  to  enfranchise  them  and  send 
them  about  their  business,  they  would  come  back  upon  his 
hands.  Were  he  to  enfranchise  them  and  pay  them  wages 
for  work,  they  would  get  the  wages,  but  he  would  not  get 
the  work.  They  would  get  the  wages ;  but  at  the  end  of 
three  months  they  would  still  fall  back  upon  his  hands  in 
debt  and  distress,  looking  to  him  for  aid  and  comfort  as  a 
child  looks  for  it.  It  is  not  easy  to  get  rid  of  a  slave  in  a 
slave  State.  That  question  of  enfranchising  slaves  is  not 
one  to  be  very  readily  solved. 

In  Pennsylvania  the  right  of  voting  is  confined  to  ,  free 
white  men.  In  New  York  the  colored  free  men  have  the 
right  to  vote,  providing  they  have  a  certain  small  property 
qualification,  and  have  been  citizens  for  three  years  in  the 
State,  whereas  a  white  man  need  have  been  a  citizen  but  for 
ten  days,  and  need  have  no  property  qualification — from 
which  it  is  seen  that  the  position  of  the  negro  becomes 
worse,  or  less  like  that  of  a  white  man,  as  the  border  of 
slave  land  is  more  nearly  reached.  But,  in  the  teeth  of  this 
embargo  on  colored  men,  the  constitution  of  Pennsylvania 
asserts  broadly  that  all  men  are  born  equally  free  and  inde- 
pendent. One  cannot  conceive  how  two  clauses  can  have 
found  their  way  into  the  same  document  so  absolutely  con- 
tradictory to  each  other.  The  first  clause  says  that  white 
men  shall  vote,  and  that  black  men  shall  not — which  means 
that  all  political  action  shall  be  confined  to  white  men. 
The  second  clause  says  that  all  men  are  born  equally  free 
and  independent. 

In  Philadelphia  I  for  the  first  time  came  across  live  seces- 
sionists—  secessionists  who  pronounced  themselves  to  be 
such.  I  will  not  say  that  I  had  met  in  other  cities  men 
who  falsely  declared  themselves  true  to  the  Union  ;  but  I 
had  fancied,  in  regard  to  some,  that  their  words  were  a  little 
stronger  than  their  feelings.  When  a  man's  bread — and, 
much  more,  when  the  bread  of  his  wife  and  children — de- 
pends on  his  professing  a  certain  line  of  political  convic- 
tion, it  is  very  hard  for  him  to  deny  his  assent  to  the  truth 
of  the  argument.  One  feels  that  a  man,  under  such  circum- 
stances, is  bound  to  be  convinced,  unless  he  be  in  a  position 
which  may  make  a  stanch  adherence  to  opposite  politics  a 
matter  of  grave  public  importance.    In  the  North  I  had 


324 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


fancied  that  I  could  sometimes  read  a  secessionist  tendency 
under  a  cloud  of  Unionist  protestations.  But  in  Philadel- 
phia men  did  not  seem  to  think  it  necessary  to  have  recourse 
to  such  a  cloud.  I  generally  found,  in  mixed  society,  that 
even  there  the  discussion  of  secession  was  not  permitted ; 
but  in  society  that  was  not  mixed  I  heard  very  strong  opin- 
ions expressed  on  each  side.  With  the  Unionists  nothing 
was  so  strong  as  the  necessity  of  keeping  of  Slidell  and 
Mason  ;  when  I  suggested  that  the  English  government 
would  probably  require  their  surrender,  I  was  talked  down 
and  ridiculed.  ''Never  that — come  what  may."  Then, 
within  half  an  hour,  I  would  be  told  by  a  secessionist  that 
England  must  demand  reparation  if  she  meant  to  retain  any 
place  among  the  great  nations  of  the  world ;  but  he  also 
would  declare  that  the  men  would  not  be  surrendered. 
"  She  must  make  the  demand,"  the  secessionists  would  say, 
"  and  then  there  will  be  war ;  and  after  that  we  shall  see 
whose  ports  will  be  blockaded  !"  The  Southerner  has  ever 
looked  to  England  for  some  breach  of  the  blockade  quite 
as  strongly  as  the  North  has  looked  to  England  for  sympa- 
thy and  aid  in  keeping  it. 

The  railway  from  Philadelphia  to  Baltimore  passes  along 
the  top  of  Chesapeake  Bay  and  across  the  Susquehanna 
River;  at  least  the  railway  cars  do  so.  On  one  side  of 
that  river  they  are  run  on  to  a  huge  ferry-boat,  and  are 
again  run  off  at  the  other  side.  Such  an  operation  would 
seem  to  be  one  of  difficulty  to  us  under  any  circumstances; 
but  as  the  Susquehanna  is  a  tidal  river,  rising  and  falling 
a  considerable  number  of  feet,  the  natural  impediment  in 
the  way  of  such  an  enterprise  would,  I  think,  have  stag- 
gered us.  We  should  have  built  a  bridge  costing  two  or 
three  millions  sterling,  on  which  no  conceivable  amount  of 
traffic  would  pay  a  fair  dividend.  Here,  in  crossing  the 
Susquehanna,  the  boat  is  so  constructed  that  its  deck  shall 
be  level  with  the  line  of  the  railway  at  half  tide,  so  that  the 
inclined  plane  from  the  shore  down  to  the  boat,  or  from  the 
shore  up  to  the  boat,  shall  never  exceed  half  the  amount 
of  the  rise  or  fall.  One  would  suppose  that  the  most  in- 
tricate machinery  would  have  been  necessary  for  such  an 
arrangement;  but  it  was  all  rough  and  simple,  and  ap- 
parently managed  by  two  negroes.  We  would  employ  a 
small  corps  of  engineers  to  conduct  such  an  operation,  and 
men  and  women  would  be  detained  in  their  carriages  under 


MARYLAND. 


325 


all  manner  of  threats  as  to  the  peril  of  life  and  limb;  but 
here  everybody  was  expected  to  look  out  for  himself.  The 
cars  were  dragged  up  the  inclined  plane  by  a  hawser  at- 
tached to  an  engine,  which  hawser,  had  the  stress  broken 
it,  as  I  could  not  but  fancy  probable,  would  have  flown 
back  and  cut  to  pieces  a  lot  of  us  who  were  standing  in 
front  of  the  car.  But  I  do  not  think  that  any  such  acci- 
dent would  have  caused  very  much  attention.  Life  and 
limbs  are  not  held  to  be  so  precious  here  as  they  are  in  Eng- 
land. It  may  be  a  question  whether  with  us  they  are  not 
almost  too  precious.  Regarding  railways  in  America  gen- 
erally, as  to  the  relative  safety  of  which,  when  compared 
with  our  own,  we  have  not  in  England  a  high  opinion,  I 
must  say  that  I  never  saw  any  accident  or  in  any  way  be- 
came conversant  with  one.  It  is  said  that  large  numbers 
of  men  and  women  are  slaughtered  from  time  to  time  on 
different  lines ;  but  if  it  be  so,  the  newspapers  make  very 
light  of  such  cases.  I  myself  have  seen  no  such  slaughter, 
nor  have  I  even  found  myself  in  the  vicinity  of  a  broken 
bone.  Beyond  the  Susquehanna  we  passed  over  a  creek 
of  Chesapeake  Bay  on  a  long  bridge.  The  whole  scenery 
here  is  very  pretty,  and  the  view  up  the  Susquehanna  is 
fine.  This  is  the  bay  which  divides  the  State  of  Maryland 
into  two  parts,  and  which  is  blessed  beyond  all  other  bays 
by  the  possession  of  canvas-back  ducks.  Nature  has  done 
a  great  deal  for  the  State  of  Maryland,  but  in  nothing  more 
than  in  sending  thither  these  webfooted  birds  of  Paradise. 

Nature  has  done  a  great  deal  for  Maryland  ;  and  Fortune 
also  has  done  much  for  it  in  these  latter  days  in  directing 
the  war  from  its  territory.  But  for  the  peculiar  position 
of  Washington  as  the  capital,  all  that  is  now  being  done  in 
Yirgiuia  would  have  been  done  in  Maryland,  and  I  must 
say  that  the  Marylanders  did  their  best  to  bring  about  such 
a  result.  Had  the  presence  of  the  war  been  regarded  by 
the  men  of  Baltimore  as  an  unalloyed  benefit,  they  could 
not  have  made  a  greater  struggle  to  bring  it  close  to  them. 
Nevertheless  fate  has  so  far  spared  them. 

As  the  position  of  Maryland  and  the  course  of  events  as 
they  took  place  in  Baltimore  on  the  commencement  of 
secession  had  considerable  influence  both  in  the  North  and 
in  the  South,  1  will  endeavor  to  explain  how  that  State  was 
affected,  and  how  the  question  was  affected  by  that  State. 
Maryland,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  a  slave  State  lying  im- 

28 


326 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


mediately  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Small  por- 
tions both  of  Virginia  and  of  Delaware  do  run  north  of 
Maryland,  but  practically  Maryland  is  the  frontier  State  of 
the  slave  States.  It  was  therefore  of  much  importance  to 
know  which  way  Maryland  would  go  in  the  event  of  seces- 
sion among  the  slave  States  becoming  general ;  and  of  much 
also  to  ascertain  whether  it  could  secede  if  desirous  of  doing 
so.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  as  a  State  it  was  desirous 
of  following  Virginia,  though  there  are  many  in  Maryland 
who  deny  this  very  stoutly.  But  it  was  at  once  evident 
that  if  loyalty  to  the  North  could  not  be  had  in  Maryland 
of  its  own  free  will,  adherence  to  the  North  must  be  enforced 
upon  Maryland.  Otherwise  the  City  of  Washington  could 
not  be  maintained  as  the  existing  capital  of  the  nation. 

The  question  of  the  fidelity  of  the  State  to  the  Union 
was  first  tried  by  the  arrival  at  Baltimore  of  a  certain  Com- 
missioner from  the  State  of  Mississippi,  who  visited  that 
city  with  the  object  of  inducing  secession.  It  must  be 
understood  that  Baltimore  is  the  commercial  capital  of 
Maryland,  whereas  Annapolis  is  the  seat  of  government 
and  the  legislature  —  or  is,  in  other  terms,  the  political 
capital.  Baltimore  is  a  city  containing  230,000  inhabit- 
ants, and  is  considered  to  have  as  strong  and  perhaps  as 
violent  a  mob  as  any  city  in  the  Union.  Of  the  above 
number  30,000  are  negroes  and  2000  are  slaves.  The 
Commissioner  made  his  appeal,  telling  his  tale  of  Southern 
grievances,  declaring,  among  other  things,  that  secession 
was  not  intended  to  break  up  the  government  but  to  per- 
petuate it,  and  asked  for  the  assistance  and  sympathy  of 
Maryland.  This  was  in  December,  1860.  The  Commis- 
sioner was  answered  by  Governor  Hicks,  who  was  placed 
in  a  somewhat  difficult  position.  The  existing  legislature 
of  the  State  was  presumed  to  be  secessionist,  but  the  legis- 
lature was  not  sitting,  nor  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things 
would  that  legislature  have  been  called  on  to  sit  again. 
The  legislature  of  Maryland  is  elected  every  other  year, 
and  in  the  ordinary  course  sits  only  once  in  the  two  years. 
That  session  had  been  held,  and  the  existing  legislature 
was  therefore  exempt  from  further  work — unless  specially 
summoned  for  an  extraordinary  session.  To  do  this  is 
within  the  power  of  the  Governor.  But  Governor  Hicks, 
who  seems  to  have  been  mainly  anxious  to  keep  things 
quiet,  and  whose  individual  politics  did  not  come  out 


RIOT  IN  BALTIMORE. 


327 


strongly,  was  not  inclined  to  issue  the  summons.  "Let  us 
show  moderation  as  well  as  firmness,"  he  said;  and  that 
was  about  all  he  did  say  to  the  Commissioner  from  Missis- 
sippi. The  Governor  after  that  was  directly  called  on  to 
convene  the  legislature;  but  this  he  refused  to  do,  alleging 
that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  trust  the  discussion  of  such  a 
subject  as  secession  to  "excited  politicians,  many  of  whom, 
having  nothing  to  lose  from  the  destruction  of  the.  govern- 
ment, may  hope  to  derive  some  gain  from  the  ruin  of  the 
State !"  I  quote  these  words,  coming  from  the  head  of  the 
executive  of  the  State  and  spoken  with  reference  to  the 
legislature  of  the  State,  with  the  object  of  showing  in  Avhat 
light  the  political  leaders  of  a  State  may  be  held  in  that 
very  State  to  which  they  belong.  If  we  are  to  judge  of 
these  legislators  from  the  opinion  expressed  by  Governor 
Hicks,  they  could  hardly  have  been  fit  for  their  places. 
That  plan  of  governing  by  the  little  men  has  certainly  not 
answered.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  Governor  Hicks, 
having  expressed  such  an  opiniou  of  his  State's  legislature, 
refused  to  call  them  to  an  extraordinary  session. 

On  the  18th  of  April,  1860,  Governor  Hicks  issued  a 
proclamation  to  the  people  of  Maryland,  begging  them  to 
be  quiet,  the  chief  object  of  which,  however,  was  that  of 
promising  that  no  troops  should  be  sent  from  their  State, 
unless  with  the  object  of  guarding  the  neighboring  City  of 
AVashington — a  promise  which  he  had  no  means  of  fulfill- 
ing, seeing  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  army  of  the  nation,  and  can 
summon  the  militia  of  the  several  States.  This  proclama- 
tion by  the  Governor  to  the  State  was  immediately  backed 
up  by  one  from  the  Mayor  of  Baltimore  to  the  city,  in  which 
he  congratulates  the  citizens  on  the  Governor's  promise  that 
none  of  their  troops  are  to  be  sent  to  another  State;  and 
then  he  tells  them  that  they  shall  be  preserved  from  the 
horrors  of  civil  war. 

But  on  the  very  next  day  the  horrors  of  civil  war  began 
in  Baltimore.  By  this  time  President  Lincoln  was  collect- 
ing troops  at  Washington  for  the  protection  of  the  capital; 
and  that  army  of  the  Potomac,  which  has  ever  since  occu- 
■pied  the  Virginian  side  of  the  river,  was  in  course  of  con- 
struction. To  join  this,  certain  troops  from  Massachusetts 
were  sent  down  by  the  usual  route,  via  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia, and  Baltimore;  but  on  their  reaching  Baltimore 


328 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


by  railway,  the  mob  of  that  town  refused  to  allow  them  to 
pass  through, — and  a  fight  began.  Nine  citizens  were 
killed  and  two  soldiers,  and  as  many  more  were  wounded. 
This,  I  think,  was  the  first  blood  spilt  in  the  civil  war; 
and  the  attack  was  first  made  by  the  mob  of  the  first  slave 
city  reached  by  the  Northern  soldiers.  This  goes  far  to 
show,  not  that  the  border  States  desired  secession,  but  that, 
when  compelled  to  choose  between  secession  and  Union, 
when  not  allowed  by  circumstances  to  remain  neutral,  their 
sympathies  were  with  their  sister  slave  States  rather  than 
with  the  North. 

Then  there  was  a  great  running  about  of  ofiBcial  men  be- 
tween Baltimore  and  Washington,  and  the  President  was 
besieged  with  entreaties  that  no  troops  should  be  sent 
through  Baltimore.  Now  this  was  hard  enough  upon 
President  Lincoln,  seeing  that  he  was  bound  to  defend  his 
capital,  that  he  could  get  no  troops  from  the  South,  and 
that  Baltimore  is  on  the  high-road  from  Washington  both 
to  the  West  and  to  the  North;  but,  nevertheless,  he  gave 
way.  Had  he  not  done  so,  all  Baltimore  would  have  been 
in  a  blaze  of  rebellion,  and  the  scene  of  the  coming  contest 
must  have  been  removed  from  Virginia  to  Maryland,  and 
Congress  and  the  government  must  have  traveled  from 
Washington  north  to  Philadelphia.  "They  shall  not  come 
through  Baltimore,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "But  they  shall 
come  through  the  State  of  Maryland.  They  shall  be  passed 
over  Chesapeake  Bay  by  water  to  Annapolis,  and  shall 
come  up  by  rail  from  thence."  This  arrangement  was  as 
distasteful  to  the  State  of  Maryland  as  the  other;  but 
Annapolis  is  a  small  town  without  a  mob,  and  the  Mary- 
landers  had  no  means  of  preventing  the  passage  of  the 
troops.  Attempts  were  made  to  refuse  the  use  of  the 
Annapolis  branch  railway,  but  General  Butler  had  the 
arranging  of  that.  General  Butler  was  a  lawyer  from 
Boston,  and  by  no  means  inclined  to  indulge  the  scruples 
of  the  Marylanders  who  had  so  roughly  treated  his  fellow- 
citizens  from  Massachusetts.  The  troops  did  therefore  pass 
by  Annapolis,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the  State.  On  the 
2Tth  of  April,  Governor  Hicks,  having  now  had  a  sufficiency 
of  individual  responsibility,  summoned  the  legislature  of 
which  he  had  expressed  so  bad  an  opinion ;  but  on  this 
occasion  he  omitted  to  repeat  that  opinion,  and  submitted 
his  views  in  very  proper  terms  to  the  wisdom  of  the  sena- 


FEDERAL  AND  STATE  LAW. 


329 


tors  and  representatives.  He  entertains,  as  he  says,  an 
honest  conviction  that  the  safety  of  Maryland  lies  in  pre- 
serving a  neutral  position  between  the  North  and  the  South. 
Certainly,  Governor  Hicks,  if  it  v/ere  only  possible  !  The 
legislature  again  went  to  work  to  prevent,  if  it  might  be 
prevented,  the  passage  of  troops  through  their  State;  but 
luckily  for  them,  they  failed.  The  President  was  bound  to 
defend  Washington,  and  the  Marylanders  were  denied  their 
wish  of  having  their  own  fields  made  the  fighting  ground 
of  the  civil  war. 

That  which  appears  to  me  to  be  the  most  remarkable 
feature  in  all  this  is  the  antagonism  between  United  States 
law  and  individual  State  feeling.  Through  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding the  Governor  and  the  State  of  Maryland  seemed  to 
have  considered  it  quite  reasonable  to  oppose  the  constitu- 
tional power  of  the  President  and  his  government.  It  is 
argued  in  all  the  speeches  and  written  documents  that  were 
produced  in  Maryland  at  the  time,  that  Maryland  was  true 
to  the  Union ;  and  yet  she  put  herself  in  opposition  to  the 
constitutional  military  power  of  the  President.  Certain 
Commissioners  went  from  the  State  legislature  to  Washing- 
ton in  May,  and  from  their  report  it  appears  that  the  Presi- 
dent had  expressed  himself  of  opinion  that  Maryland  might 
do  this  or  that  "as  long  as  she  had  not  taken  and  was  not 
about  to  take  a  hostile  attitude  to  the  Federal  govern- 
ment !"  From  which  we  are  to  gather  that  a  denial  of  that 
military  power  given  to  the  President  by  the  Constitution 
was  not  considered  as  an  attitude  hostile  to  the  Federal 
government.  At  any  rate,  it  was  direct  disobedience  to 
Federal  law.  I  cannot  but  revert  from  this  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Federal  law,  and  indeed 
the  original  constitution,  plainly  declare  that  fugitive  slaves 
shall  be  given  up  by  the  free-soil  States.  Massa^-husetts 
proclaims  herself  to  be  specially  a  Federal  law-loving  State. 
But  every  man  in  Massachusetts  knows  that  no  judge, 
no  sheriff,  no  magistrate,  no  policeman  in  that  State 
would  at  this  time,  or  then,  when  that  civil  war  was  begin- 
ning, have  lent  a  hand  in  any  way  to  the  rendition  of  a 
fugitive  slave.  The  Federal  law  requires  the  State  to  give 
up  the  fugitive,  but  the  State  law  docs  not  require  judge, 
sheriff,  magistrate,  or  policeman  to  engage  in  such  work, 
and  no  judge,  sheriff,  or  magistrate  will  do  so  ;  consequently 
that  Federal  law  is  dead  in  Massachusetts,  as  it  is  also  in 

28* 


330 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


every  free-soil  State, — dead,  except  in  as  much  as  there 
was  life  in  it  to  create  ill  blood  as  long  as  the  North  and 
South  remained  together,  and  would  be  life  in  it  for  the  same 
effect  if  they  should  again  be  brought  under  the  same 
flag. 

On  the  10th  of  May,  the  Maryland  legislature,  having  re- 
ceived the  report  of  their  Commissioners  above  mentioned, 
passed  the  following  resolution  : — 

"  Whereas,  the  war  against  the  Confederate  States  is  un- 
constitutional and  repugnant  to  civilization,  and  will  result 
in  a  bloody  and  shameful  overthrow  of  our  constitution,  and 
while  recognizing  the  obligations  of  Maryland  to  the  Union, 
we  sympathize  with  the  South  in  the  struggle  for  their  rights ; 
for  the  sake  of  humanity  we  are  for  peace  and  reconciliation, 
and  solemnly  protest  against  this  war,  and  will  take  no  part 
in  it. 

''Resolved,  That  Maryland  implores  the  President,  in  the 
name  of  God,  to  cease  this  unholy  war,  at  least  until  Con- 
gress assembles" — a  period  of  above  six  months.  "That 
Maryland  desires  and  consents  to  the  recognition  of  the  in- 
dependence of  the  Confederate  States.  The  military  oc- 
cupation of  Maryland  is  unconstitutional,  and  she  protests 
against  it,  though  the  violent  interference  with  the  transit 
of  the  Federal  troops  is  discountenanced.  That  the  vindi- 
cation of  her  rights  be  left  to  time  and  reason,  and  that 
a  convention  under  existing  circumstances  is  inexpedient." 
From  which  it  is  plain  that  Maryland  would  have  seceded 
as  effectually  as  Georgia  seceded,  had  she  not  been  pre- 
vented by  the  interposition  of  Washington  between  her  and 
the  Confederate  States — the  happy  intervention,  seeing  that 
she  has  thus  been  saved  from  becoming  the  battle-ground 
of  the  contest.  But  the  legislature  had  to  pay  for  its  rash- 
ness. On  the  13th  of  September  thirteen  of  its  members 
were  arrested,  as  were  also  two  editors  of  newspapers  pre- 
sumed to  be  secessionists.  A  member  of  Congress  was  also 
arrested  at  the  same  time,  and  a  candidate  for  Governor 
Hicks's  place,  who  belonged  to  the  secessionist  party.  Pre- 
viously, in  the  last  days  of  June  and  beginning  of  July,  the 
chief  of  the  police  at  Baltimore  and  the  members  of  the 
Board  of  Police  had  been  arrested  by  General  Banks,  who 
then  held  Baltimore  in  his  power. 

I  should  be  sorry  to  be  construed  as  saying  that  republi- 
can institutions,  or  what  m^ay  more  properly  be  called  dem- 


BALTIMORE. 


331 


ocratic  institutions,  have  been  broken  down  in  the  States  of 
America.  I  am  far  from  thinking  that  they  have  broken 
down.  Taking  them  and  their  work  as  a  whole,  I  think 
that  they  have  shown  and  still  show  vitality  of  the  best 
order.  But  the  written  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
and  of  the  several  States,  as  bearing  upon  each  other,  are 
not  equal  to  the  requirements  made  upon  them.  That,  I 
think,  is  the  conclusion  to  which  a  spectator  should  come. 
It  is  in  that  doctrine  of  finality  that  our  friends  have  broken 
down — a  doctrine  not  expressed  in  their  constitutions,  and 
indeed  expressly  denied  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  which  provides  the  mode  in  which  amendments  shall 
be  made — but  appearing  plainly  enough  in  every  word  of 
self-gratulation  which  comes  from  them.  Political  finality 
has  ever  proved  a  delusion — as  has  the  idea  of  finality  in  all 
human  institutions.  I  do  not  doubt  but  that  the  republican 
form  of  government  will  remain  and  make  progress  in  North 
America,  but  such  prolonged  existence  and  progress  must 
be  based  on  an  acknowledgment  of  the  necessity  for  change, 
and  must  much  depend  on  the  facilities  for  change  which 
shall  be  afforded. 

I  have  described  the  condition  of  Baltimore  as  it  was 
early  in  May,  1861.  I  reached  that  city  just  seven  months 
later,  and  its  condition  was  considerably  altered.  There 
was  no  question  then  whether  troops  should  pass  through 
Baltimore,  or  by  an  awkward  round  through  Annapolis,  or 
not  pass  at  all  through  Maryland.  General  Dix,  who  had 
succeeded  General  Banks,  was  holding  the  city  in  his  grip, 
and  martial  law  prevailed.  In  such  times  as  those,  it 
was  bootless  to  inquire  as  to  that  promise  that  no  troops 
should  pass  southward  through  Baltimore.  What  have 
such  assurances  ever  been  worth  in  such  days  ?  Balti- 
more was  now  a  military  depot  in  the  hands  of  the 
Northern  army,  and  General  Dix  was  not  a  man  to  stand 
any  trifling.  He  did  me  the  honor  to  take  me  to  the  top 
of  Federal  Hill,  a  suburb  of  the  city,  on  which  he  had  raised 
great  earthworks  and  planted  mighty  cannons,  and  built 
tents  and  barracks  for  his  soldiery,  and  to  show  me  how  in- 
stantaneously he  could  destroy  the  town  from  his  exalted 
position.  "This  hill  was  made  for  the  very  purpose,'^  said 
General  Dix ;  and  no  doubt  he  thought  so.  Generals,  when 
they  have  fine  positions  and  big  guns  and  prostrate  people 
lying  under  their  thumbs,  are  inclined  to  think  that  God's 


332 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


providence  has  specially  ordaiued  them  and  their  points  of 
vantage.  It  is  a  good  thing  in  the  mind  of  a  general  so 
circumstanced  that  200,000  men  should  be  made  subject  to 
a  dozen  big  guns.  I  confess  that  to  me,  having  had  no 
military  education,  the  matter  appeared  in  a  different  light, 
and  I  could  not  work  up  my  enthusiasm  to  a  pitch  which 
would  have  been  suitable  to  the  general's  courtesy.  That 
hill,  on  which  many  of  the  poor  of  Baltimore  had  lived,  was 
desecrated  in  my  eyes  by  those  columbiads.  The  neat  earth- 
works were  ugly,  as  looked  upon  by  me ;  and  though  I  re- 
garded General  Dix  as  energetic,  and  no  doubt  skillful  in 
the  work  assigned  to  him,  I  could  not  sympathize  with  his 
exultation. 

Previously  to  the  days  of  secession  Baltimore  had  been 
guarded  by  Fort  McHenry,  which  lies  on  a  spit  of  land 
running  out  into  the  bay  just  below  the  town.  Hither  I 
went  with  General  Dix,  and  he  explained  to  me  how  the 
cannon  had  heretofore  been  pointed  solely  toward  the  sea; 
that,  however,  now  was  all  changed,  and  the  mouths  of  his 
bombs  and  great  artillery  were  turned  all  the  other  way. 
The  commandant  of  the  fort  was  with  us,  and  other  officers, 
and  they  all  spoke  of  this  martial  tenure  as  a  great  blessing. 
Hearing  them,  one  could  hardly  fail  to  suppose  that  they 
had  lived  their  forty,  fifty,  or  sixty  years  of  life  in  full  reli- 
ance on  the  powers  of  a  military  despotism.  But  not  the 
less  were  they  American  republicans,  who,  twelve  months 
since,  would  have  dilated  on  the  all-sufficiency  of  their  repub- 
lican institutions,  and  on  the  absence  of  any  military  restraint 
in  their  country,  with  that  peculiar  pride  which  characterizes 
the  citizens  of  the  States.  There  are,  however,  some  lessons 
which  may  be  learned  with  singular  rapidity  ! 

Such  was  the  state  of  Baltimore  when  I  visited  that  city. 
I  found,  nevertheless,  that  cakes  and  ale  still  prevailed  there. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  cakes  and  ale  prevail  most  freely 
in  times  that  are  perilous,  and  when  sources  of  sorrow 
abound.  I  have  seen  more  reckless  joviality  in  a  town 
stricken  by  pestilence  than  I  ever  encountered  elsewhere. 
There  was  General  Dix  seated  on  Federal  Hill  with  his 
cannon;  and  there,  beneath  his  artillery,  were  gentlemen 
hotly  professing  themselves  to  be  secessionists,  men  whose 
sons  and  brothers  were  in  the  Southern  army,  and  women, 
alas !  whose  brothers  would  be  in  one  army,  and  their  sons 
in  another.    That  was  the  part  of  it  which  was  most  heart- 


BALTIMORE. 


333 


rending  in  this  border  land.  In  New  England  and  New 
York  men's  minds  at  any  rate  were  bent  all  in  the  same 
direction — as  doubtless  they  were  also  in  Georgia  and  Ala- 
bama. But  here  fathers  were  divided  from  sons,  and  mothers 
from  daughters.  Terrible  tales  were  told  of  threats  uttered 
by  one  member  of  a  family  against  another.  Old  ties  of 
friendship  were  broken  up.  Society  had  so  divided  itself 
that  one  side  could  hold  no  terms  of  courtesy  with  the  other. 
"When  this  is  over,"  one  gentleman  said  to  me,  "every  man 
in  Baltimore  will  have  a  quarrel  to  the  death  on  his  hands 
with  some  friend  whom  he  used  to  love."  The  complaints 
made  on  both  sides  were  eager  and  open-mouthed  against 
the  other. 

Late  in  the  autumn  an  election  for  a  new  legislature  of 
the  State  had  taken  place,  and  the  members  returned  were 
all  supposed  to  be  Unionists.  That  they  were  prepared  to 
support  the  government  is  certain.  But  no  known  or  pre- 
sumed secessionist  was  allowed  to  vote  without  first  taking 
the  oath  of  allegiance.  The  election,  therefore,  even  if  the 
numbers  were  true,  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  a  free  election. 
Yoters  were  stopped  at  the  poll  and  not  allowed  to  vote 
unless  they  would  take  an  oath  which  would,  on  their  parts, 
undoubtedly  have  been  false.  It  was  also  declared  in  Balti- 
more that  men  engaged  to  promote  the  Northern  party  were 
permitted  to  vote  five  or  six  times  over,  and  the  enormous 
number  of  votes  polled  on  the  government  side  gave  some 
coloring  to  the  statement.  At  any  rate,  an  election  carried 
under  General  Dix's  guns  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  open 
election.  It  was  out  of  the  question  that  any  election  taken 
under  such  circumstances  should  be  worth  anything  as  ex- 
pressing the  minds  of  the  people.  Red  and  white  had  been 
declared  to  be  the  colors  of  the  Confederates,  and  red  and 
white  had  of  course  become  the  favorite  colors  of  the  Bal- 
timore ladies.  Then  it  was  given  out  that  red  and  white 
would  not  be  allowed  in  the  streets.  Ladies  wearing  red 
and  white  were  requested  to  return  home.  Children  deco- 
rated with  red  and  white  ribbons  were  stripped  of  their  bits 
of  finery  —  much  to  their  infantile  disgust  and  dismay. 
Ladies  would  put  red  and  white  ornaments  in  their  windows, 
and  the  police  would  insist  on  the  withdrawal  of  the  colors. 
Such  was  the  condition  of  Baltimore  during  the  past  winter. 
Nevertheless  cakes  and  ale  abounded  ;  and  though  there  was 
deep  grief  in  the  city,  and  wailing  in  the  recesses  of  many 


334 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


houses,  and  a  feeling  that  the  good  times  were  gone,  never 
to  return  within  the  days  of  many  of  them,  still  there  ex- 
isted an  excitement  and  a  consciousness  of  the  importance 
of  the  crisis  which  was  not  altogether  unsatisfactory.  Men 
and  women  can  endure  to  be  ruined,  to  be  torn  from  their 
friends,  to  be  overwhelmed  with  avalanches  of  misfortune, 
better  than  they  can  endure  to  be  dull. 

Baltimore  is,  or  at  any  rate  was,  an  aspiring  city,  proud 
of  its  commerce  and  proud  of  its  society.  It  has  regarded 
itself  as  the  New  York  of  the  South,  and  to  some  extent 
has  forced  others  so  to  regard  it  also.  In  many  respects  it 
is  more  like  an  English  town  than  most  of  its  Transatlantic 
brethren,  and  the  ways  of  its  inhabitants  are  English.  In 
old  days  a  pack  of  fox  hounds  was  kept  here — or  indeed  in 
days  that  are  not  yet  very  old,  for  I  was  told  of  their  doings 
by  a  gentleman  who  had  long  been  a  member  of  the  hunt. 
The  country  looks  as  a  hunting  country  should  look,  whereas 
no  man  that  ever  crossed  a  field  after  a  pack  of  hounds  would 
feel  the  slightest  wish  to  attempt  that  process  in  New  Eng- 
land or  New  York.  There  is  in  Baltimore  an  old  inn  with 
an  old  sign,  standing  at  the  corner  of  Eutaw  and  Franklin 
Streets,  just  such  as  may  still  be  seen  in  the  towns  of  Som- 
ersetshire, and  before  it  there  are  to  be  seen  old  wagons, 
covered  and  soiled  and  battered,  about  to  return  from  the 
city  to  the  country,  just  as  the  wagons  do  in  our  own  agri- 
cultural counties.  I  have  seen  nothing  so  thoroughly 
English  in  any  other  part  of  the  Union. 

But  canvas-back  ducks  and  terrapins  are  the  great  glories 
of  Baltimore.  Of  the  nature  of  the  former  bird  I  believe 
all  the  world  knows  something.  It  is  a  wild  duck  which 
obtains  the  peculiarity  of  its  flavor  from  the  wild  celery  on 
which  it  feeds.  This  celery  grows  on  the  Chesapeake  Bay, 
and  I  believe  on  the  Chesapeake  Bay  only.  At  any  rate, 
Baltimore  is  the  headquarters  of  the  canvas-backs,  and  it 
is  on  the  Chesapeake  Bay  that  they  are  shot.  I  was  kindly 
invited  to  go  down  on  a  shooting-party;  but  when  I  learned 
that  I  should  have  to  ensconce  myself  alone  for  hours  in  a 
wet  wooden  box  on  the  water's  edge,  waiting  there  for  the 
chance  of  a  duck  to  come  to  me,  I  declined.  The  fact  of 
my  never  having  as  yet  been  successful  in  shooting  a  bird 
of  any  kind  conduced  somewhat,  perhaps,  to  my  decision. 
I  must  acknowledge  that  the  canvas-back  duck  fully  deserves 
all  the  reputation  it  has  acquired.    As  to  the  terrapin,  I 


MARYLAND. 


335 


have  not  so  much  to  say.  The  terrapin  is  a  small  turtle, 
found  on  the  shores  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  out  of  which 
a  very  rich  soup  is  made.  It  is  cooked  with  wines  and 
spices,  and  is  served  in  the  shape  of  a  hash,  with  heaps  of 
little  bones  mixed  through  it.  It  is  held  in  great  repute,  and 
the  guest  is  expected  as  a  matter  of  course  to  be  helped 
twice.  The  man  who  did  not  eat  twice  of  terrapin  would 
be  held  in  small  repute,  as  the  Londoner  is  held  who  at  a 
city  banquet  does  not  partake  of  both  thick  and  thin  turtle. 
I  must,  however,  confess  that  the  terrapin  for  me  had  no 
surpassing  charms. 

Maryland  was  so  called  from  Henrietta  Maria,  the  wife 
of  Charles  I.,  by  which  king,  in  1G32,  the  territory  was  con- 
ceded to  the  Roman  Catholic  Lord  Baltimore.  It  was 
chiefly  peopled  by  Roman  Catholics,  but  I  do  not  think  that 
there  is  now  any  such  specialty  attaching  to  the  State. 
There  are  in  it  two  or  three  old  Roman  Catholic  families, 
but  the  people  have  come  down  from  the  North,  and  have  no 
peculiar  religious  tendencies.  Some  of  Lord  Baltimore's 
descendants  remained  in  the  State  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Revolution.    From  Baltimore  I  went  on  to  Washington. 


E5D  OF  VOL.  I. 


V 


N  O  E  T I-I 

A  M  E  E  I  C  A. 

BY 

ANTHONY  TROLLOPE, 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE   -WEST   INDIES   AND    THE    SPANISH  MAIN." 

VOLUME  II. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   &  CO. 
18G3. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  11. 


CHAPTER  I. 

AVasliington   5 

CHAPTER  II. 

Congress   30 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Causes  of  the  War   46 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Washington  to  St.  Louis     6^ 

CHAPTER  V. 

Missouri   91 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Cairo  and  Camp  Wood   110 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Army  of  the  North   130 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Back  to  Boston   159 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Constitution  cf  the  United  States   179 


(iii) 


i?  CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  II. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Government   219 

CHAPTER  XL 

The  Law  Courts  and  Lawyers  of  the  United  States   234 

CHAPTER  XIL 

The  Financial  Position   245 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

The  Post-office   265 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

American  Hotels   281 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Literature   295 

r  CHAPTER  XVI. 

Conclusion   308 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

WASHINGTON. 

The  site  of  the  present  City  of  Washington  was  chosen 
with  three  special  views :  firstly,  that  being  on  the  Poto- 
mac it  might  have  the  full  advantage  of  water-carriage  and 
a  sea-port;  secondly,  that  it  might  be  so  far  removed  from 
the  sea-board  as  to  be  safe  from  invasion  ;  and,  thirdly,  that 
it  might  be  central  alike  to  all  the  States.  It  was  presumed, 
when  Washington  was  founded,  that  these  three  advantages 
would  be  secured  by  the  selected  position.  As  regards  the 
first,  the  Potomac  affords  to  the  city  but  few  of  the  advant- 
ages of  a  sea-port.  Ships  can  come  up,  but  not  ships  of 
large  burden.  The  river  seems  to  have  dwindled  since  the 
site  was  chosen,  and  at  present  it  is,  I  think,  evident  that 
Washington  can  never  be  great  in  its  shipping.  Statio 
henefida  carinis  can  never  be  its  motto.  As  regards  the 
second  point,  singularly  enough  Washington  is  the  only  city 
of  the  Union  that  has  been  in  an  enemy's  possession  since 
the  United  States  became  a  nation.  In  the  war  of  1812  it 
fell  into  our  hands,  and  we  burned  it.  As  regards  the  third 
point,  Washington,  from  the  lie  of  the  land,  can  hardly  have 
been  said  to  be  centrical  at  any  time.  Owing  to  the  irregu- 
larities of  the  coast  it  is  not  easy  of  access  by  railways  from 
different  sides.  Baltimore  would  have  been  far  better.  But 
as  far  as  we  can  now  see,  and  as  well  as  we  can  now  judge, 
Washington  will  soon  be  on  the  borders  of  the  nation  to 
which  it  belongs,  instead  of  at  its  center.  I  fear,  there- 
fore, that  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  site  chosen  for  his 
country's  capital  by  George  Washington  has  not  been  for- 
tunate. 

I  have  a  strong  idea,  which  I  expressed  before  in  speak- 
ing of  the  capital  of  the  Canadas,  that  no  man  can  ordain 
VOL.  n. — 1*  (5) 


6 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  oil  such  a  spot  shall  be  built  a  great  and  thriving  city. 
No  man  can  so  ordain  even  though  he  leave  behind  him,  as 
was  the  case  with  Washington,  a  prestige  sufficient  to  bind 
his  successors  to  his  wishes.  The  political  leaders  of  the 
country  have  done  what  they  could  for  Washington.  The 
pride  of  the  nation  has  endeavored  to  sustain  the  character 
of  its  chosen  metropolis.  There  has  been  no  rival,  solicit- 
ing favor  on  the  strength  of  other  charms.  The  country  has 
all  been  agreed  on  the  point  since  the  father  of  the  country 
first  commenced  the  work.  Florence  aud  Rome  in  Italy 
have  each  their  pretensions;  but  in  the  States  no  other  city 
has  put  itself  forward  for  the  honor  of  entertaining  Con- 
gress. And  yet  Washington  has  been  a  failure.  It  is  com- 
merce that  makes  great  cities,  and  commerce  has  refused  to 
back  the  general's  choice.  New  York  and  Philadelphia., 
without  any  political  power,  have  become  great  among  the 
cities  of  the  earth.  They  are  beaten  by  none  except  by 
London  and  Paris.  But  Washington  is  but  a  ragged,  un- 
finished collection  of  unbuilt  broad  streets,  as  to  the  com- 
pletion of  which  there  can  now,  I  imagine,  be  but  little 
hope. 

Of  all  places  that  I  know  it  is  the  most  ungainly  and 
most  unsatisfactory  :  I  fear  I  must  also  say  the  most  pre- 
sumptuous in  its  pretensions.  There  is  a  map  of  Wash- 
ington accurately  laid  down ;  and  taking  that  map  with 
him  in  his  journeyings,  a  man  may  lose  himself  in  the 
streets,  not  as  one  loses  one's  self  in  London,  between  Shore- 
ditch  and  Russell  Square,  but  as  one  does  so  in  the  deserts 
of  the  Holy  Land,  between  Emmaus  and  Arimathea.  In 
the  first  place  no  one  knows  where  the  places  are,  or  is  sure 
of  tiieir  existence,  and  then  between  their  presumed  local- 
ities the  country  is  wild,  trackless,  unbridged,  uninhabited, 
and  desolate.  Massachusetts  Avenue  runs  the  whole  length 
of  the  city,  and  is  inserted  on  the  maps  as  a  full-blown 
street,  about  four  miles  in  length.  Go  there,  and  you  will 
find  yourself  not  only  out  of  town,  away  among  the  fields, 
but  you  will  find  yourself  beyond  the  fields,  in  an  unculti- 
vated, undrained  wilderness.  Tucking  your  trowsers  up  to 
your  knees  you  will  wade  through  the  bogs,  you  will  lose 
yourself  among  rude  hillocks,  you  will  be  out  of  the  reach 
of  humanity.  The  unfinished  dome  of  the  Capitol  will 
loom  before  you  in  the  distance,  and  you  will  think  that  you 
approach  the  ruins  of  some  western  Palmyra.    If  you  are 


WASHINGTON. 


a  sportsman,  you  will  desire  to  slioot  snipe  within  sight  of 
the  President's  house.  There  is  much  unsettled  land  within 
the  States  of  America,  but  I  think  none  so  desolate  in  its 
state  of  nature  as  three-fourths  of  the  ground  on  which  is 
supposed  to  stand  the  City  of  Washington. 

The  City  of  Washington  is  something  more  than  four 
miles  long,  and  is  something  more  than  two  miles  broad. 
The  land  apportioned  to  it  is  nearly  as  compact  as  may  be, 
and  it  exceeds  in  area  the  size  of  a  parallelogram  four  miles 
long  by  two  broad.  These  dimensions  are  adequate  for  a 
noble  city,  for  a  city  to  contain  a  million  of  inhabitants. 
It  is  impossible  to  state  with  accuracy  the  actual  population 
of  Washington,  for  it  fluctuates  exceedingly.  The  place 
is  very  full  during  Congress,  and  very  empty  during  the  re- 
cess. By  which  I  mean  it  to  be  understood  that  those 
streets  which  are  blessed  with  houses  are  full  when  Con- 
gress meets.  I  do  not  think  that  Congress  makes  much 
difference  to  Massachusetts  Avenue.  I  believe  that  the 
city  never  contains  as  many  as  eighty  thousand,  and  that  its 
permanent  residents  are  less  than  sixty  thousand. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  was  it  not  well  to  prepare  for  a 
growing  city  ?  Is  it  not  true  that  London  is  choked  by 
its  own  fatness,  not  having  been  endowed  at  its  birth  or 
during  its  growth  with  proper  means  for  accommodating 
its  own  increasing  proportions?  Was  it  not  well  to  lay 
down  fine  avenues  and  broad  streets,  so  that  future  citizens 
might  find  a  city  well  prepared  to  their  hand  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  much  in  such  an  argument,  but  its 
correctness  must  be  tested  by  its  success.  When  a  man 
marries  it  is  well  that  he  should  make  provision  for  a  com- 
ing family.  But  a  Benedict,  who  early  in  his  career  shall 
have  carried  his  friends  with  considerable  self-applause 
through  half  a  dozen  nurseries,  and  at  the  end  of  twelve 
years  shall  still  be  the  father  of  one  rickety  baby,  will  in- 
cur a  certain  amount  of  ridicule.  It  is  very  well  to  be 
prepared  for  good  fortune,  but  one  should  limit  one's  prep- 
aration within  a  reasonable  scope.  Two  miles  by  one 
might,  perhaps,  have  done  for  the  skeleton  sketch  of  a  new 
city.  Less  than  half  that  would  contain  much  more  than 
the  present  population  of  Washington ;  and  there  are,  I 
fear,  few  towns  in  the  Union  so  little  likely  to  enjoy  any 
speedy  increase. 

Three  avenues  sweep  the  whole  length  of  Washington : 


.8 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Tirginia  Avenue,  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  and  Massachusetts 
Avenue.  But  Pennsylvania  Avenue  is  the  only  one  known 
to  ordinary  men,  and  the  half  of  that  only  is  so  known. 
This  avenue  is  the  backbone  of  the  city,  and  those  streets 
which  are  really  inhabited  cluster  round  that  half  of  it 
which  runs  westward  from  the  Capitol.  The  eastern  end, 
running  from  the  front  of  the  Capitol,  is  again  a  desert. 
The  plan  of  the  city  is  somewhat  complicated.  It  may 
truly  be  called  "a  mighty  maze,  but  not  without  a  plan." 
The  Capitol  was  intended  to  be  the  center  of  the  city.  It 
faces  eastward,  away  from  the  Potomac — or  ratlier  from  the 
main  branch  of  the  Potomac,  and  also  unfortunately  from 
the  main  body  of  the  town.  It  turns  its  back  upon  the 
chief  tiioroughfare,  upon  the  Treasury  buildings,  and  upon 
the  President's  house,  and,  indeed,  upon  the  whole  place. 
It  was,  I  suppose,  intended  that  the  streets  to  the  eastward 
should  be  noble  and  populous,  but  hitherto  they  have  come 
to  nothing.  The  building,  therefore,  is  wrong  side  fore- 
most, and  all  mankind  who  enter  it,  Senators,  Representa- 
tives, and  judges  included,  go  in  at  the  back  door.  Of 
course  it  is  generally  known  that  in  the  Capitol  is  the 
chamber  of  the  Senate,  that  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives, and  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  the  Union.  It 
may  be  said  that  there  are  two  centers  in  Washington,  this 
being  one  and  the  President's  house  the  other.  At  these 
centers  the  main  avenues  are  supposed  to  cross  each  other, 
which  avenues  are  called  by  the  names  of  the  respective 
States.  At  the  Capitol,  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  New  Jer- 
sey Avenue,  Delaware  Avenue,  and  Maryland  Avenue  con- 
verge. They  come  from  one  extremity  of  the  city  to  the 
square  of  the  Capitol  on  one  side,  and  run  out  from  the 
other  side  of  it  to  the  other  extremity  of  the  city.  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  New  York  Avenue,  Vermont  Avenue, 
and  Connecticut  Avenue  do  the  same  at  what  is  generally 
called  President's  Square.  In  theory,  or  on  paper,  this 
seems  to  be  a  clear  and  intelligible  arrangement;  but  it 
does  not  work  well.  These  center  depots  are  large  spaces, 
and  consequently  one  portion  of  a  street  is  removed  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  the  other.  It  is  as  though  the  same 
name  should  be  given  to  two  streets,  one  of  which  entered 
St.  James's  Park  at  Backinghara  Gate,  while  the  other 
started  from  the  Park  at  Marlborough  House.  To  inhab- 
itants the  matter  probably  is  not  of  much  moment,  as  it  is 


WASUINGTON. 


9 


well  known  tliat  this  portion  of  such  an  avenue  and  that 
portion  of  such  another  avenue  are  merely  myths — unknown 
lands  away  in  the  wikls.  But  a  stranger  finds  himself  in 
the  position  of  being  sent  across  the  country  knee  deep 
into  the  mud,  wading  through  snipe  grounds,  looking  for 
civilization  where  none  exists. 

All  these  avenues  have  a  slanting  direction.  They  are 
so  arranged  that  none  of  them  run  north  and  south,  or 
east  and  west;  but  the  streets,  so  called,  all  run  in  accord- 
ance with  the  points  of  the  compass.  Those  from  east  to 
west  are  A  Street,  B  Street,  C  Street,  and  so  on — count- 
ing them  away  from  the  Capitol  on  each  side,  so  that  there 
are  two  A  streets  and  two  B  streets.  On  the  map  these 
streets  run  up  to  Y  Street,  both  right  and  left — Y  Street 
North  and  Y  Street  South.  Those  really  known  to  man- 
kind are  E,  F,  G,  H,  I,  and  K  Streets  North.  Then  those 
streets  which  run  from  north  to  south  are  numbered  First 
Street,  Second  Street,  Third  Street,  and  so  on,  on  each 
front  of  the  Capitol,  running  to  Twenty-fourth  or  Twenty- 
fifth  Street  on  each  side.  Not  very  many  of  these  have 
any  existence,  or,  I  might  perhaps  more  properly  say,  any 
vitality  in  their  existence. 

Such  is  the  plan  of  the  city,  that  being  the  arrangement 
and  those  the  dimensions  intended  by  the  original  architects 
and  founders  of  Washington ;  but  the  inhabitants  have 
hitherto  confined  themselves  to  Pennsylvania  Avenue  West, 
and  to  the  streets  abutting  from  it  or  near  to  it.  Whatever 
address  a  stranger  may  receive,  however  perplexing  it  may 
seem  to  him,  he  may  be  sure  that  the  house  indicated  is  near 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  If  it  be  not,  I  should  recommend 
him  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  summons.  Even  in  those 
streets  with  which  he  will  become  best  acquainted,  the 
houses  are  not  continuous.  There  will  be  a  house,  and 
then  a  blank ;  then  two  houses,  and  then  a  double  blank. 
After  that  a  hut  or  two,  and  then  probably  an  excellent, 
roomy,  handsome  family  mansion.  Taken  altogether,  Wash- 
ington as  a  city  is  most  unsatisfactory,  and  falls  more  griev- 
ously short  of  the  thing  attempted  than  any  other  of  the 
great  undertakings  of  which  I  have  seen  anything  in  the 
States.  San  Jose,  the  capital  of  the  republic  of  Costa  Rica, 
in  Central  America,  has  been  prepared  and  arranged  as  a 
new  city  in  the  same  way.  But  even  San  Jose  comes  nearer 
to  what  was  intended  than  does  Washington. 


10 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


For  myself,  I  do  not  believe  in  cities  made  after  this 
fashion.  Commerce,  I  think,  must  select  the  site  of  all  large 
congregations  of  mankind.  In  some  mysterious  way  she 
ascertains  what  she  wants,  and  having  acquired  that,  draws 
men  in  thousands  round  her  properties.  Liverpool,  New 
York,  Lyons,  Glasgow,  Yenice,  Marseilles,  Hamburg,  Cal- 
cutta, Chicago,  and  Leghorn  have  all  become  populous, 
and  are  or  have  been  great,  because  trade  found  them  to  be 
convenient  for  its  purposes.  Trade  seems  to  have  ignored 
Washington  altogether.  Such  being  the  case,  the  Legisla- 
ture and  the  Executive  of  the  country  together  have  been 
unable  to  make  of  Washington  anything  better  than  a  strag- 
gling congregation  of  buildings  in  a  wilderness.  We  are 
now  trying  the  same  experiment  at  Ottawa,  in  Canada, 
having  turned  our  back  upon  Montreal  in  dudgeon.  The 
site  of  Ottawa  is  more  interesting  than  that  of  Washington, 
but  I  doubt  whether  the  experiment  will  be  more  successful. 
A  new  town  for  art,  fashion,  and  politics  has  been  built  at 
Munich,  and  there  it  seems  to  answer  the  expectation  of  the 
builders ;  but  at  Munich  there  is  an  old  city  as  well,  and 
commerce  had  already  got  some  considerable  hold  on  the 
spot  before  the  new  town  was  added  to  it. 

The  streets  of  Washington,  such  as  exist,  are  all  broad. 
Throughout  the  town  there  are  open  spaces  —  spaces,  I 
mean,  intended  to  be  open  by  the  plan  laid  down  for  the 
city.  At  the  present  moment  it  is  almost  all  open  space. 
There  is  also  a  certain  nobility  about  the  proposed  dimen- 
sions of  the  avenues  and  squares.  Desirous  of  praising  it 
in  some  degree,  I  can  say  that  the  design  is  grand.  The 
thing  done,  however,  falls  so  infinitely  short  of  that  design, 
that  nothing  but  disappointment  is  felt.  And  I  fear  that 
there  is  no  look-out  into  the  future  which  can  justify  a  hope 
that  the  design  will  be  fulfilled.  It  is  therefore  a  melan- 
choly place.  The  society  into  which  one  falls  there  consists 
mostly  of  persons  who  are  not  permanently  resident  in  the 
capital ;  but  of  those  who  were  permanent  residents  I  found 
none  who  spoke  of  their  city  with  alfection.  The  men  and 
women  of  Boston  think  that  the  sun  shines  nowhere  else ; 
and  Boston  Common  is  very  pleasant.  The  New  Yorkers 
believe  in  Fifth  Avenue  with  an  unswerving  faith ;  and 
Fifth  Avenue  is  calculated  to  inspire  a  faith.  Philadelphia 
to  a  Philadelphian  is  the  center  of  the  universe;  and  the 
progress  of  Philadelphia,  perhaps,  justifies  the  partiality. 


PUBLIC  BUILDINGS. 


11 


The  same  tiling  may  be  said  of  Chicago,  of  Buffalo,  and  of 
Baltimore.  But  the  same  thing  cannot  be  said  in  any  de- 
gree of  Washington.  They  who  belong  to  it  turn  up  their 
noses  at  it.  They  feel  that  they  live  surrounded  by  a  failure. 
Its  grand  names  are  as  yet  false,  and  none  of  the  efforts 
made  have  hitherto  been  successful.  Even  in  winter,  when 
Congress  is  sitting,  Washington  is  melancholy;  but  W^ash- 
ington  in  summer  must  surely  be  the  saddest  spot  on  earth. 

There  are  six  principal  public  buildings  in  Washington, 
as  to  which  no  expense  seems  to  have  been  spared,  and  in 
the  construction  of  which  a  certain  amount  of  success  has 
been  obtained.  In  most  of  these  this  success  has  been  more 
or  less  marred  by  an  independent  deviation  from  recognized 
rules  of  architectural  taste.  These  are  the  Capitol,  the 
Post-office,  the  Patent-office,  the  Treasury,  the  President's 
house,  and  the  Smithsonian  Institution.  The  five  first  are 
Grecian,  and  the  last  in  Washington  is  called — Romanesque. 
Had  I  been  left  to  classify  it  by  my  own  unaided  lights,  I 
should  have  called  it  bastard  Gothic. 

The  Capitol  is  by  far  the  most  imposing ;  and  though 
there  is  much  about  it  with  which  I  cannot  but  find  fault,  it 
certainly  is  imposing.  The  present  building  was,  I  think, 
commenced  in  1815,  the  former  Capitol  having  been  de- 
stroyed by  the  English  in  the  war  of  1812-13.  It  was  then 
finished  according  to  the  original  plan,  with  a  fine  portico 
and  well  proportioned  pediment  above  it — looking  to  the 
east.  The  outer  flight  of  steps,  leading  up  to  this  from  the 
eastern  approach,  is  good  and  in  excellent  taste.  The  ex- 
panse of  the  building  to  the  right  and  left,  as  then  arranged, 
was  well  proportioned,  and,  as  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  the 
then  existing  dome  was  well  proportioned  also.  As  seen 
from  the  east  the  original  building  must  have  been  in  itself 
very  fine.  The  stone  is  beautiful,  being  bright  almost  as 
marble,  and  I  do  not  know  that  there  was  any  great  arch- 
itectural defect  to  offend  the  eye.  The  figures  in  the  pedi- 
ment are  mean.  There  is  now  in  the  Capitol  a  group  ap- 
parently prepared  for  a  pediment,  which  is  by  no  means 
mean.  I  was  informed  that  they  were  intended  for  this 
position  ;  but  they,  on  the  other  hand,  are  too  good  for 
such  a  place,  and  are  also  too  numerous.  This  set  of  statues 
is  by  Crawford.  Most  of  them  are  well  known,  and  they  are 
very  fine.  They  now  stand  within  the  old  chamber  of  the 
Representative  House,  and  the  pity  is  that,  if  elevated  to 


12 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


such  a  position  as  that  indicated,  they  can  never  be  really 
seen.  There  are  models  of  them  all  at  West  Point,  and 
some  of  them  I  have  seen  at  other  places  in  marble.  The 
Historical  Society,  at  New  York,  has  one  or  two  of  them. 
In  and  about  the  front  of  the  Capitol  there  are  other  efforts 
of  sculpture — imposing  in  their  size,  and  assuming,  if  not 
affecting,  much  in  the  attitudes  chosen.  Statuary  at  Wash- 
ington runs  too  much  on  two  subjects,  which  are  repeated 
perhaps  almost  ad  nauseam:  one  is  that  of  a  stiff,  steady- 
looking,  healthy,  but  ugly  individual,  with  a  square  jaw  and 
big  jowl,  which  represents  the  great  general ;  he  does  not 
prepossess  the  beholder,  because  he  appears  to  be  thoroughly 
ill  natured.  And  the  other  represents  a  melancholy,  weak 
figure  without  any  hair,  but  often  covered  with  feathers,  and 
is  intended  to  typify  the  red  Indian.  The  red  Indian  is 
generally  supposed  to  be  receiving  comfort ;  but  it  is  mani- 
fest that  he  never  enjoys  the  comfort  ministered  to  him. 
There  is  a  gigantic  statue  of  Washington,  by  Greenough, 
out  in  the  grounds  in  front  of  the  building.  The  figure 
is  seated  and  holding  up  one  of  its  arms  toward  the  city. 
There  is  about  it  a  kind  of  weighty  magnificence  ;  but  it  is 
stiff,  ungainly,  and  altogether  without  life. 

But  the  front  of  the  original  building  is  certainly  grand. 
The  architect  who  designed  it  must  have  had  skill,  taste, 
and  nobility  of  conception  ;  but  even  this  is  spoiled,  or 
rather  wasted,  by  the  fact  that  the  front  is  made  to  look 
upon  nothing,  and  is  turned  from  the  city.  It  is  as  though 
thefagade  of  the  London  Post-office  had  been  made  to  face 
the  Goldsmiths'  Hall.  The  Capitol  stands  upon  the  side  of 
a  hill,  the  front  occupying  a  much  higher  position  than  the 
back ;  consequently  they  who  enter  it  from  the  back — and 
everybody  does  so  enter  it — are  first  called  on  to  rise  to  the 
level  of  the  lower  floor  by  a  stiff  ascent  of  exterior  steps, 
which  are  in  no  way  grand  or  imposing,  and  then,  having 
entered  by  a  mean  back  door,  are  instantly  obliged  to  ascend 
again  by  another  flight — by  stairs  sufficiently  appropriate  to 
a  back  entrance,  but  altogether  unfitted  for  the  chief  ap- 
proach to  such  a  building.  It  may,  of  course,  be  said  that 
persons  who  are  particular  in  such  matters  should  go  in  at 
the  front  door  and  not  at  the  back ;  but  one  must  take  these 
things  as  one  finds  them.  The  entrance  by  which  the  Cap- 
itol is  approaclied  is  such  as  I  have  described.  There  are 
mean  little  brick  chimneys  at  the  left  hand  as  one  walks  in, 


THE  CmTOL. 


13 


*  attached  to  modern  bakeries,  which  have  been  constructed 
in  the  basement  for  the  use  of  the  soldiers  ;  and  there  is  on 
the  other  hand  the  road  by  which  wagons  find  their  way  to 
the  underground  region  with  fuel,  stationery,  and  other  mat- 
ters desired  by  Senators  and  Jleprcsentatives,  and  at  present 
by  bakers  also. 

In  speaking  of  the  front  I  have  spoken  of  it  as  it  was 
originally  designed  and  built.  Since  that  period  very  heavy 
wings  have  been  added  to  the  pile — wings  so  heavy  that 
they  are  or  seem  to  be  much  larger  than  the  original  struc- 
ture itself.  This,  to  my  thinking,  has  destroyed  the  sym- 
metry of  the  whole.  The  wings,  which  in  themselves  are  ■ 
by  no  means  devoid  of  beauty,  are  joined  to  the  center  by 
passages  so  narrow  that  from  exterior  points  of  view  the 
light  can  be  seen  through  them.  This  robs  the  mass  of  all 
oneness,  of  all  entirety  as  a  whole,  and  gives  a  scattered, 
straggling  appearance,  where  there  should  be  a  look  of  mas- 
siveness  and  integrity.  The  dome  also  has  been  raised — a 
double  drum  having  been  given  to  it.  This  is  unfinished, 
and  should  not  therefore  yet  be  judged  ;  but  I  cannot  think 
that  the  increased  height  will  be  an  improvement.  This, 
again,  to  my  eyes,  appears  to  be  straggling  rather  than 
massive.  At  a  distance  it  commands  attention  ;  and  to  one 
journeying  through  the  desert  places  of  the  city  gives  that 
idea  of  Palmyra  which  I  have  before  mentioned. 

Nevertheless,  and  in  spite  of  all  that  I  have  said,  I  have 
had  pleasure  in  walking  backward  and  forward,  and  through 
the  grounds  which  lie  before  the  eastern  front  of  the  Capitol. 
The  space  for  the  view  is  ample,  and  the  thing  to  be  seen 
has  points  which  are  very  grand.  If  the  Capitol  were  fin- 
ished and  all  Washington  were  built  around  it,  no  man 
would  say  that  the  house  in  which  Congress  sat  disgraced 
the  city. 

Going  west,  but  not  due  west,  from  the  Capitol,  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue  stretches  in  a  right  line  to  the  Treasury  cham- 
bers. The  distance  is  beyond  a  mile  ;  and  men  say  scorn- 
fully that  the  two  buildings  have  been  put  so  far  apart  in 
order  to  save  the  secretaries  who  sit  in  the  bureaus  from  a 
too  rapid  influx  of  members  of  Congress.  This  statement 
I  by  no  means  indorse ;  but  it  is  undoubtedly  the  fact  that 
both  Senators  and  Representatives  are  very  diligent  in  their 
calls  upon  gentlemen  high  in  office.  I  have  been  present 
on  some  such  occasions,  and  it  has  always  seemed  to  me 
VOL,  II. — 2 


14 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  questions  of  patronage  have  been  paramount.  This 
reach  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  is  the  quarter  for  the  best 
shops  of  Washington — that  is  to  say,  the  frequented  side 
of  it  is  so,  that  side  which  is  on  your  right  as  you  leave 
the  Capitol.  Of  the  other  side  the  world  knows  nothing. 
And  very  bad  shops  they  are.  I  doubt  whether  there  be 
any  town  in  the  world  at  all  equal  in  importance  to  Wash- 
ington which  is  in  such  respects  so  ill  provided.  The  shops 
are  bad  and  dear.  In  saying  this  I  am  guided  by  the  opin- 
ions of  all  whom  I  heard  speak  on  the  subject.  The  same 
thing  was  told  me  of  the  hotels.  Hearing  that  the  city  was 
very  full  at  the  time  of  my  visit — full  to  overflowing — I 
had  obtained  private  rooms,  through  a  friend,  before  I  went 
there.  Had  I  not  done  so,  I  might  have  lain  in  the  streets, 
or  have  made  one  with  three  or  four  others  in  a  small  room 
at  some  third-rate  inn.  There  had  never  been  so  great  a 
throng  in  the  town.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  my  friend  did 
well  for  me.  I  found  myself  put  up  at  the  house  of  one 
Wormley,  a  colored  man,  in  I  Street,  to  whose  attention  I 
can  recommend  any  Englishman  who  may  chance  to  want 
quarters  in  Washington.  He  has  a  hotel  on  one  side  of  the 
street  and  private  lodging-houses  on  the  other,  in  which  I 
found  myself  located.  From  what  I  heard  of  the  hotels,  I 
conceived  myself  to  be  greatly  in  luck.  Willard's  is  the 
chief  of  these  ;  and  the  everlasting  crowd  and  throng  of 
men  with  which  the  halls  and  passages  of  the  house  were 
always  full  certainly  did  not  seem  to  promise  either  privacy 
or  comfort.  But  then  there  are  places  in  which  privacy  and 
comfort  are  not  expected — are  hardly  even  desired — and 
Washington  is  one  of  them. 

The  Post-office  and  the  Patent-office  lie  a  little  away  from 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  F  Street,  and  are  opposite  to  each 
other.  The  Post-office  is  certainly  a  very  graceful  building. 
It  is  square,  and  hardly  can  be  said  to  have  any  settled 
front  or  any  grand  entrance.  It  is  not  approached  by  steps, 
but  stands  flush  on  the  ground,  alike  on  each  of  the  four 
sides.  It  is  ornamented  with  Corinthian  pilasters,  but  is 
not  over-ornamented.  It  is  certainly  a  structure  creditable 
to  any  city.  The  streets  around  it  are  all  unfinished ;  and 
it  is  approached  through  seas  of  mud  and  sloughs  of  de- 
spond, which  have  been  contrived,  as  I  imagine,  to  lessen, 
if  possible,  the  crowd  of  callers,  and  lighten  in  this  way  the 
overtasked  officials  within.    That  side  by  which  the  public 


THE  POST-OFFICE  AT  WASHINGTON. 


15 


in  general  were  supposed  to  approach  was,  during  my  so- 
journ, always  guarded  by  vast  mountains  of  flour  barrels. 
Looking  up  at  the  windows  of  the  building,  I  perceived 
also  that  barrels  were  piled  within,  and  then  I  knew  that 
the  Post-0  nice  had  become  a  provision  depot  for  the  army. 
The  official  arrangements  here  for  the  public  were  so  bad 
as  to  be  absolutely  barbarous.  I  feel  some  remorse  in  say- 
ing this,  for  I  was  myself  treated  with  the  utmost  courtesy 
by  gentlemen  holding  high  positions  in  the  office,  to  which 
I  was  specially  attracted  by  my  own  connection  with  the 
post-office  in  England.  But  I  do  not  think  that  such 
courtesy  should  hinder  me  from  telling  what  I  saw  that  was 
bad,  seeing  that  it  would  not  hinder  me  from  telling  what  I 
saw  that  was  good.  In  Washington  there  is  but  one  post- 
office.  There  are  no  iron  pillars  or  wayside  letter-boxes, 
as  are  to  be  found  in  other  towns  of  the  Union — no  sub- 
sidiary offices  at  which  stamps  can  be  bought  and  letters 
posted.  The  distances  of  the  city  are  very  great,  the  means 
of  transit  through  the  city  very  limited,  the  dirt  of  the  city 
ways  unrivaled  in  depth  and  tenacity,  and  yet  there  is  but 
one  post-office.  Nor  is  there  any  established  system  of 
letter-carriers.  To  those  who  desire  it  letters  are  brought 
out  and  delivered  by  carriers,  who  charge  a  separate  por- 
terage for  that  service  ;  but  the  rule  is  that  letters  should 
be  delivered  from  the  window.  For  strangers  this  is  of 
course  a  necessity  of  their  position;  and  I  found  that,  when 
once  I  had  left  instruction  that  my  letters  should  be  deliv- 
ered, those  instructions  were  carefully  followed.  Indeed, 
nothing  could  exceed  the  civility  of  the  officials  within  ; 
but  so  also  nothing  can  exceed  the  barbarity  of  the  arrange- 
ments without.  The  purchase  of  stamps  I  found  to  be  ut- 
terly impracticable.  They  were  sold  at  a  window  in  a  cor- 
ner, at  which  newspapers  were  also  delivered,  to  which  there 
was  no  regular  ingress  and  from  which  there  was  no  egress. 
It  would  generally  be  deeply  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of 
muddy  soldiers,  who  would  wait  there  patiently  till  time 
should  enable  them  to  approach  the  window.  The  delivery 
of  letters  was  almost  more  tedious,  though  in  that  there 
was  a  method.  The  aspirants  stood  in  a  long  line,  en  cue, 
as  we  are  told  by  Carlyle  that  the  bread-seekers  used  to 
approach  the  bakers'  shops  at  Paris  during  the  Revolution. 
This  "cue"  would  sometimes  project  out  into  the  street. 
The  work  inside  was  done  very  slowly.    The  clerk  had  no 


16 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


facility,  by  use  of  a  desk  or  otherwise,  for  running  through 
the  letters  under  the  initials  denominated,  but  turned  letter 
by  letter  through  his  hand.  To  one  questioner  out  of  ten 
would  a  letter  be  given.  It  no  doubt  may  be  said  in  excuse 
for  this  that  the  presence  of  the  army  round  Washington 
caused,  at  that  period,  special  inconvenience;  and  that  plea 
should  of  course  be  taken,  were  it  not  that  a  very  trifling 
alteration  in  the  management  within  would  have  remedied 
all  the  inconvenience.  As  a  building,  the  Washington  Post- 
ofiSce  is  very  good ;  as  the  center  of  a  most  complicated 
and  difiScult  department,  I  believe  it  to  be  well  managed ; 
but  as  regards  the  special  accommodation  given  by  it  to 
the  city  in  which  it  stands,  much  cannot,  I  think,  be  said  in 
its  favor. 

Opposite  to  that  which  is,  I  presume,  the  back  of  the 
Post-oflQce,  stands  the  Patent-office.  This  also  is  a  grand 
building,  with  a  fine  portico  of  Doric  pillars  at  each  of  its 
three  fronts.  These  are  approached  by  flights  of  steps, 
more  gratifying  to  the  eye  than  to  the  legs.  The  whole 
structure  is  massive  and  grand,  and,  if  the  streets  round  it 
were  finished,  would  be  imposing.  The  utilitarian  spirit  of 
the  nation  has,  however,  done  much  toward  marring  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  building,  by  piercing  it  with  windows  alto- 
gether unsuited  to  it,  both  in  number  and  size.  The  walls, 
even  under  the  porticoes,  have  been  so  pierced,  in  order 
that  the  whole  space  might  be  utilized  without  loss  of  light; 
and  the  efi'ect  is  very  mean.  The  windows  are  small,  and 
without  ornament — something  like  a  London  window  of 
the  time  of  George  III.  The  efi'ect  produced  by  a  dozen 
such  at  the  back  of  a  noble  Doric  porch,  looking  down 
among  the  pillars,  may  be  imagined. 

In  the  interior  of  this  building  the  Minister  of  the  Inte- 
rior holds  his  court,  and,  of  course,  also  the  Commissioners 
of  Patents.  Here  is,  in  accordance  with  the  name  of  the 
building,  a  museum  of  models  of  all  patents  taken  out.  I 
wandered  through  it,  gazing  with  listless  eye  now  upon  this 
and  now  upon  that ;  but  to  me,  in  my  ignorance,  it  was  no 
better  than  a  large  toy-shop.  When  I  saw  an  ancient,  dusty 
white  hat,  with  some  peculiar  appendage  to  it  which  was 
unintelligible,  it  was  no  more  to  me  than  any  other  old 
white  hat.  But  had  I  been  a  man  of  science,  what  a  tale 
it  might  have  told  !  Wandering  about  through  the  Patent- 
office  I  also  found  a  hospital  for  soldiers.    A  British  officer 


THE  WHITE  HOUSE. 


It 


was  with  me  who  pronounced  it  to  be,  in  its  kind,  very  good. 
At  any  rate  it  was  sweet,  airy,  and  large.  In  these  days 
the  soldiers  had  got  hold  of  everything. 

The  Treasury  chambers  is  as  yet  an  unfinished  building. 
The  front  to  the  south  has  been  completed ;  but  that  to  the 
north  has  not  been  built  Here  at  the  north  stands  as  yet 
the  old  Secretary  of  State's  office.  This  is  to  come  down, 
and  the  Secretary  of  State  is  to  be  located  in  the  new  build- 
ing, which  will  be  added  to  the  Treasury.  This  edifice  will 
probably  strike  strangers  more  forcibly  than  any  other  in 
the  town,  both  from  its  position  and  from  its  own  character. 
It  stands  with  its  side  to  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  but  tlie 
avenue  here  has  turned  round,  and  runs  due  north  and  south, 
having  taken  a  twist,  so  as  to  make  way  for  the  Treasury 
and  for  the  President's  house,  through  both  of  which  it  must 
run  had  it  been  carried  straight  on  throughout.  These  pub- 
lic offices  stand  with  their  side  to  the  street,  and  the  whole 
length  is  ornamented  with  an  exterior  row  of  Ionic  columns 
raised  high  above  the  footway.  This  is  perhaps  the  prettiest 
thing  in  the  city,  and  when  the  front  to  the  north  has  been 
completed,  the  effect  will  be  still  better.  The  granite  mono- 
liths which  have  been  used,  and  which  are  to  be  used,  in 
this  building  are  very  massive.  As  one  enters  by  the  steps 
to  the  south  there  are  two  flat  stones,  one  on  each  side  of 
the  ascent,  the  surface  of  each  of  which  is  about  twenty 
feet  by  eighteen.  The  columns  are,  I  think,  all  monoliths. 
Of  those  which  are  still  to  be  erected,  and  which  now  lie 
about  in  the  neighboring  streets,  I  measured  one  or  two — 
one  which  was  still  in  the  rough  I  found  to  be  thirty-two 
feet  long  by  five  feet  broad,  and  four  and  a  half  deep. 
These  granite  blocks  have  been  brought  to  Washington 
from  the  State  of  Maine.  The  fin'shed  front  of  this  build- 
ing, looking  down  to  the  Potomac,  is  very  good ;  but  to  my 
eyes  this  also  has  been  much  injured  by  the  rows  of  windows 
which  look  out  from  the  building  into  the  space  of  the  por- 
tico. 

The  President's  house — or  the  White  House  as  it  is  now 
called  all  the  world  over — is  a  handsome  mansion  fitted  for 
the  chief  officer  of  a  great  republic,  and  nothing  more.  I 
think  I  may  say  that  we  have  private  houses  in  London 
considerably  larger.  It  is  neat  and  pretty,  and  with  all  its 
immediate  outside  belongings  calls  down  no  adverse  criti- 
cism.   It  faces  on  to  a  small  garden,  which  seems  to  be 

VOL.  2. — 2* 


18 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


always  accessible  to  the  public,  and  opens  ont  npon  that 
everlasting  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  which  has  now  made 
anotlier  turn.  Here  in  front  of  tlie  White  House  is  Presi- 
dent's Square,  as  it  is  generally  called.  The  technical  name 
is,  I  believe,  La  Fayette  Square.  The  houses  round  it  are 
few  in  number — not  exceeding  three  or  four  on  each  side, 
but  they  are  among  the  best  in  Washington,  and  the  whole 
place  is  neat  and  well  kept.  President's  Square  is  certainly 
the  most  attractive  part  of  the  city.  The  garden  of  the 
square  is  always  open,  and  does  not  seem  to  suffer  from  any 
public  ill  usage ;  by  which  circumstance  I  am  again  led  to 
suggest  that  the  gardens  of  our  London  squares  might  be 
'thrown  open  in  the  same  way.  In  the  center  of  this  one  at 
Washington,  immediately  facing  the  President's  house,  is  an 
equestrian  statue  of  General  Jackson.  It  is  very  bad;  but 
that  it  is  not  nearly  as  bad  as  it  might  be  is  proved  by 
another  equestrian  statue — of  General  Washington — erected 
in  the  center  of  a  small  garden  plat  at  the  end  of  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue,  near  the  bridge  leading  to  Georgetown.  Of 
all  the  statues  on  horseback  which  I  ever  saw,  either  in 
marble  or  bronze,  this  is  by  far  the  worst  and  most  ridicu- 
lous. The  horse  is  most  absurd,  but  the  man  sitting  on  the 
horse  is  manifestly  drunk.  I  should  think  the  time  must 
come  when  this  figure  at  any  rate  will  be  removed. 

I  did  not  go  inside  the  President's  house,  not  having  had 
while  at  Washington  an  opportunity  of  paj-ing  my  personal 
respects  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  had  been  told  that  this  was  to 
be  done  without  trouble,  but  when  I  inquired  on  the  subject 
I  found  that  this  was  not  exactly  the  case.  I  believe  there 
are  times  when  anybody  may  walk  into  the  President's  house 
without  an  introduction ;  bpt  that,  I  take  it,  is  not  consid- 
ered to  be  the  proper  way  of  doing  the  work.  I  found  that 
something  like  a  favor  would  be  incurred,  or  that  some  disa- 
greeable trouble  would  be  given,  if  I  made  a  request  to  be 
presented,  and  therefore  I  left  Washington  without  seeing 
the  great  man. 

The  President's  house  is  nice  to  look  at,  but  it  is  built  on 
marshy  ground,  not  much  above  the  level  of  the  Potomac, 
and  is  very  unhealthy.  I  was  told  that  all  who  live  there 
become  subject  to  fever  and  ague,  and  that  few  who  now 
live  there  have  escaped  it  altogether.  This  comes  of  choos- 
ing the  site  of  a  new  city,  and  decreeing  that  it  shall  bo 
built  on  this  or  on  that  spot.    Large  cities,  especially  in 


THE  WASHINGTON  iMONUMENT. 


19 


these  latter  days,  do  not  collect  themselves  in  unhealthy 
places.  Men  desert  such  localities — or  at  least  do  not  con- 
gregate at  them  when  their  character  is  once  known.  But 
the  poor  President  cannot  desert  the  Wliite  House.  He 
must  make  the  most  of  the  residence  which  the  nation  has 
prepared  for  him. 

Of  the  other  considerable  public  building  of  Washington, 
called  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  I  have  said  that  its  style 
was  bastard  Gothic ;  by  this  I  mean  that  its  main  attributes 
are  Gothic,  but  that  liberties  have  been  taken  with  it,  which, 
whether  they  may  injure  its  beauty  or  no,  certainly  are  sub- 
versive of  architectural  purity.  It  is  built  of  red  stone,  and 
is  not  ugly  in  itself.  There  is  a  very  nice  Norman  porch  to 
it,  and  little  bits  of  Lombard  Gothic  have  been  well  copied 
from  Cologne.  But  windows  have  been  fitted  in  with  stilted 
arches,  of  which  the  stilts  seem  to  crack  and  bend,  so  nar- 
row are  they  and  so  high.  And  then  the  towers  with  high 
pinnacled  roofs  are  a  mistake — unless  indeed  they  be  needed 
to  give  to  the  whole  structure  that  name  of  Romanesque 
which  it  has  assumed.  The  building  is  used  for  museums 
and  lectures,  and  was  given  to  the  city  by  one  James  Smith- 
son,  an  Englishman.  I  cannot  say  that  the  City  of  Wash- 
ington seems  to  be  grateful,  for  all  to  whom  I  spoke  on  the 
subject  hinted  that  the  Institution  was  a  failure.  It  is  to 
be  remarked  that  nobody  in  Washington  is  proud  of  Wash- 
ington, or  of  anything  in  it.  If  the  Smithsonian  Institu- 
tion w^re  at  New  York  or  at  Boston,  one  would  have  a  dif- 
ferent story  to  tell. 

There  has  been  an  attempt  made  to  raise  at  Washington 
a  vast  obelisk  to  the  memory  of  Washington — the  first  in 
war  and  first  in  peace,  as  the  country  is  proud  to  call  him. 
This  obelisk  is  a  fair  type  of  the  city.  It  is  unfinished — 
not  a  third  of  it  having  as  yet  been  erected  —  and  in  all 
human  probability  ever  will  remain  so.  If  finished,  it  would 
be  the  highest  monument  of  its  kind  standing  on  the  face  of 
the  globe;  and  yet,  after  all,  what  would  it  be  even  then  as 
compared  with  one  of  the  great  pyramids  ?  Modern  attempts 
cannot  bear  comparison  with  those  of  the  old  world  in  simple 
vastness.  But  in  lieu  of  simple  vastness,  the  modern  world 
aims  to  achieve  either  beauty  or  utility.  By  the  Washing- 
ton' monument,  if  completed,  neither  would  be  achieved. 
An  obelisk  with  the  proportions  of  a  needle  may  be  very 
graceful;  but  an  obelisk  which  requires  an  expanse  of  flat- 


20 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


roofed,  sprawling  buildings  for  its  base,  and  of  which  the 
shaft  shall  be  as  big  as  a  cathedral  tower,  cannot  be  grace- 
ful. At  present  some  third  portion  of  the  shaft  has  been 
built,  and  there  it  stands.  No  one  has  a  word  to  say  for  it. 
No  one  thinks  that  money  will  ever  again  be  subscribed  for 
its  completion.  I  saw  somewhere  a  box  of  plate-glass  kept 
for  contributions  for  this  purpose,  and  looking  in  perceived 
that  two  half-dollar  pieces  had  been  given  —  but  both  of 
them  were  bad.  I  was  told  also  that  the  absolute  founda- 
tion of  the  edifice  is  bad — that  the  ground,  which  is  near 
the  river  and  swampy,  would  not  bear  the  weight  intended 
to  be  imposed  on  it. 

A  sad  and  saddening  spot  was  that  marsh,  as  I  wandered 
down  on  it  all  alone  one  Sunday  afternoon.  The  ground 
was  frozen  and  I  could  walk  dry-shod,  but  there  was  not  a 
blade  of  grass.  Around  me  on  all  sides  were  cattle  in  great 
numbers — steers  and  big  oxen — lowing  in  their  hunger  for 
a  meal.  They  were  beef  for  the  army,  and  never  again,  I 
suppose,  would  it  be  allowed  to  them  to  fill  their  big  maws 
and  chew  the  patient  cud.  There,  on  the  brown,  ugly,  un- 
drained  field,  within  easy  sight  of  the  President's  house, 
stood  the  useless,  shapeless,  graceless  pile  of  stones.  It  was 
as  though  I  were  looking  on  the  genius  of  the  city.  It  was 
vast,  pretentious,  bold,  boastful  with  a  loud  voice,  already 
taller  by  many  heads  than  other  obelisks,  but  nevertheless 
still  in  its  infancy  —  ugly,  unpromising,  and  false.  The 
founder  of  the  monument  had  said.  Here  shall  be  the  obelisk 
of  the  world !  and  the  founder  of  the  city  had  thought  of 
his  child  somewhat  in  the  same  strain.  It  is  still  possible 
that  both  city  and  monument  shall  be  completed ;  but  at  the 
present  moment  nobody  seems  to  believe  in  the  one  or  in  the 
other.  For  myself,  I  have  much  faith  in  the  American  char- 
acter, but  I  cannot  believe  either  in  Washington  City  or  in 
the  Washington  Monument.  The  boast  made  has  been  too 
loud,  and  tlie  fulfillment  yet  accomplished  has  been  too 
small ! 

Have  I  as  yet  said  that  Washington  was  dirty  in  that 
winter  of  1861-62?  Or,  I  should  rather  ask,  have  I  made 
it  understood  that  in  walking  about  Washington  one  waded 
as  deep  in  mud  as  one  does  in  floundering  through  an  ordi- 
nary plowed  field  in  November?  There  were  parts  of  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  which  would  have  been  considered  heavy 
ground  by  most  hunting-men,  and  through  some  of  the 


ARLINGTON  HEIGHTS. 


21 


remoter  streets  none  but  light  weights  could  have  lived  long. 
This  was  the  state  of  the  town  when  I  left  it  in  the  middle 
of  January.  On  my  arrival  in  the  middle  of  December, 
everything  was  in  a  cloud  of  dust.  One  walked  through  an 
atmosphere  of  floating  mud ;  for  the  dirt  was  ponderous  and 
thick,  and  very  palpable  in  its  atoms.  Then  came  a  severe 
frost  and  a  little  snow;  and  if  one  did  not  fall  while  walk- 
ing, it  was  very  well.  After  that  we  had  the  thaw;  and 
Washington  assumed  its  normal  winter  condition.  I  must 
say  that,  during  the  whole  of  this  time,  the  atmosphere  was 
to  me  exhilarating;  but  I  was  hardly  out  of  the  doctor's 
hands  while  I  was  there,  and  he  did  not  support  my  theory 
as  to  the  goodness  of  the  air.  "It  is  poisoned  by  the  sol- 
diers," he  said,  "and  everybody  is  ill."  But  then  my  doctor 
was,  perhaps,  a  little  tinged  with  Southern  proclivities. 

On  the  Virginian  side  of  the  Potomac  stands  a  country- 
house  called  Arlington  Heights,  from  which  there  is  a  fine 
view  down  upon  the  city.  Arlington  Heights  is  a  beautiful 
spot — having  all  the  attractions  of  a  fine  park  in  our  country. 
It  is  covered  with  grand  timber.  The  ground  is  varied  and 
broken,  and  the  private  roads  about  sweep  here  into  a  dell 
and  then  up  a  brae  side,  as  roads  should  do  in  such  a  domain. 
Below  it  was  the  Potomac,  and  immediately  on  the  other 
side  stands  the  City  of  Washington.  Any  city  seen  thus  is 
graceful ;  and  the  white  stones  of  the  big  buildings,  when 
the  sun  gleams  on  them,  showing  the  distant  rows  of  col- 
umns, seem  to  tell  something  of  great  endeavor  and  of 
achieved  success.  It  is  the  place  from  whence  Washington 
should  be  seen  by  those  who  wish  to  think  well  of  the  present 
city  and  of  its  future  prosperity.  But  is  it  not  the  case  that 
every  city  is  beautiful  from  a  distance  ? 

The  house  at  Arlington  Heights  is  picturesque,  but  neither 
large  nor  good.  It  has  before  it  a  high  Greek  colonnade, 
which  seems  to  be  almost  bigger  than  the  house  itself. 
Had  such  been  built  in  a  city — and  many  such  a  portico  does 
stand  in  cities  through  the  States — it  would  be  neither  pic- 
turesque nor  graceful ;  but  here  it  is  surrounded  by  timber, 
and  as  the  columns  are  seen  through  the  trees,  they  gratify 
the  eye  rather  than  offend  it.  The  place  did  belong,  and  as 
I  think  does  still  belong,  to  the  family  of  the  Lees — if  not 
already  confiscated.  General  Lee,  who  is  or  would  be  the  pres- 
ent owner,  bears  high  command  in  the  army  of  the  Confeder- 
ates, and  knows  well  by  what  tenure  he  holds  or  is  likely  to 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


hold  his  family  property.  The  family  were  friends  of  General 
Washington,  whose  seat,  Mount  Yernon,  stands  about 
twelve  miles  lower  down  the  river;  and  here,  no  doubt, 
Washington  often  stood,  looking  on  the  site  he  had  chosen. 
If  his  spirit  could  stand  there  nov7  and  look  around  upon 
the  masses  of  soldiers  by  which  his  capital  is  surrounded, 
how  would  it  address  the  city  of  his  hopes  ?  When  he  saw 
that  every  foot  of  the  neighl3oring  soil  was  desecrated  by  a 
camp,  or  torn  into  loathsome  furrows  of  mud  by  cannon  and 
army  wagons  —  that  agriculture  was  gone,  and  that  every 
effort  both  of  North  and  South  was  concentrated  on  the  art 
of  killing;  when  he  saw  that  this  was  done  on  the  very  spot 
chosen  by  himself  for  the  center  temple  of  an  everlasting 
union,  what  would  he  then  say  as  to  that  boast  made  on  his 
behalf  by  his  countrymen,  that  he  was  first  in  war  and  first 
in  peace  ?  Washington  was  a  great  man,  and  I  believe  a 
good  man.  I,  at  any  rate,  will  not  belittle  him.  I  think 
that  he  had  the  firmness  and  audacity  necessary  for  a  revo- 
lutionary leader,  that  he  had  honesty  to  preserve  him  from 
the  temptations  of  ambition  and  ostentation,  and  that  he 
had  the  good  sense  to  be  guided  in  civil  matters  by  men  who 
had  studied  the  laws  of  social  life  and  the  theories  of  free 
government.  He  was  Justus  et  tenax  propositi;  and  in 
periods  that  might  well  have  dismayed  a  smaller  man,  he 
feared  neither  the  throne  to  which  he  opposed  himself  nor 
the  changing  voices  of  the  fellow-citizens  for  whose  welfare 
he  had  fought.  But  sixty  or  seventy  years  will  not  suffice 
to  give  to  a  man  the  fame  of  having  been  first  among  all 
men.  Washington  did  much,  and  I  for  one  do  not  believe 
that  his  work  will  perish.  But  I  have  always  found  it  diffi- 
cult— I  may  say  impossible — to  sound  his  praises  in  his  own 
land.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  courteous  Frenchman  ventures 
an  opinion  among  Englishmen  that  Wellington  was  a  great 
general,  would  he  feel  disposed  to  go  on  with  his  eulogium 
when  encountered  on  two  or  three  sides  at  once  with  such 
observations  as  the  following:  "I  should  rather  calculate 
he  was ;  about  the  first  that  ever  did  live  or  ever  will  live. 
Why,  he  whipped  your  Napoleon  everlasting  whenever  he 
met  him.  He  whipped  everybody  out  of  the  field.  There 
warn't  anybody  ever  lived  was  able  to  stand  nigh  him,  and 
there  won't  come  any  like  him  again.  Sir,  I  guess  our 
Wellington  never  had  his  likes  on  your  side  of  the  water. 
Such  men  can't  grow  in  a  down-trodden  country  of  slaves 


DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA. 


23 


and  paupers."  Under  such  circumstances  the  Frenchman 
would  probably  be  shut  up.  And  when  I  strove  to  speak 
of  Washington  I  generally  found  myself  shut  up  also. 

Arlington  Heights,  when  I  was  at  Washington,  was  the 
headquarters  of  General  McDowell,  the  general  to  whom  is 
attributed — I  believe  most  wrongfully — the  loss  of  the  bat- 
tle of  Bull's  Run.  The  whole  place  was  then  one  camp. 
The  fences  had  disappeared.  The  gardens  were  trodden 
into  mud.  The  roads  had  been  cut  to  pieces,  and  new 
tracks  made  everywhere  through  the  grounds.  But  the 
timber  still  remained.  Some  no  doubt  had  fallen,  but 
enough  stood  for  the  ample  ornamentation  of  the  place. 
I  saw  placards  up,  prohibiting  the  destruction  of  the  trees, 
and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  have  been  spared.  Yery 
little  in  this  way  has  been  spared  in  the  country  all 
around. 

Mount  Yernon,  Washington's  own  residence,  stands 
close  over  the  Potomac,  about  six  miles  below  Alexandria. 
It  will  be  understood  that  the  capital  is  on  the  eastern,  or 
Maryland  side  of  the  river,  and  that  Arlington  Heights, 
Alexandria,  and  Mount  Yernon  are  in  Yirginia.  The 
River  Potomac  divided  the  two  old  colonies,  or  States  as 
they  afterward  became;  but  when  Washington  was  to  be 
built,  a  territory,  said  to  be  ten  miles  square,  was  cut  out 
of  the  two  States  and  was  called  the  District  of  Columbia. 
The  greater  portion  of  this  district  was  taken  from  Mary- 
land, and  on  that  the  city  was  built.  It  comprised  the 
pleasant  town  of  Georgetown,  which  is  now  a  suburb — and 
the  only  suburb — of  Washington.  The  portion  of  the  dis- 
trict on  the  Yirginian  side  included  Arlington  Heights,  and 
went  so  far  down  the  river  as  to  take  in  the  Yirginian  City 
of  Alexandria.  This  was  the  extreme  western  point  of  the 
district;  but  since  that  arrangement  was  made,  the  State  of 
Yirginia  petitioned  to  have  their  portion  of  Columbia  back 
again,  and  this  petition  was  granted.  Now  it  is  felt  that 
the  land  on  both  sides  of  the  river  should  belong  to  the 
city,  and  the  government  is  anxious  to  get  back  the  Yir- 
ginian section.  The  city  and  the  immediate  vicinity  are 
freed  from  all  State  allegiance,  and  are  under  the  imme- 
diate rule  of  the  United  States  government — having  of 
course  its  own  municipality;  but  the  inhabitants  have  no 
political  power,  as  power  is  counted  in  the  States.  They 
vote  for  no  political  officer,  not  even  for  the  President,  and 


24 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


return  no  member  to  Congress,  either  as  a  Senator  or  as  a 
Representative.  Mount  Vernon  was  never  within  the  Dis- 
trict of  Cohimbia. 

When  I  first  made  inquiry  on  the  subject,  I  was  told  that 
Mount  Vernon  at  that  time  was  not  to  be  reached;  that 
though  it  was  not  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels,  neither  was  it 
in  the  hands  of  Northerners,  and  that  therefore  strangers 
could  not  go  there;  but  this,  though  it  was  told  to  me  and 
others  by  those  who  should  have  known  the  facts,  was  not 
the  case.  I  had  gone  down  the  river  with  a  party  of  ladies, 
and  we  were  opposite  to  Mount  Vernon ;  but  on  that  occa- 
sion we  were  assured  we  could  not  land.  The  rebels,  we 
were  told,  would  certainly  seize  the  ladies,  and  carry  them 
otf  into  Secessia.  On  hearing  which,  the  ladies  were  of 
course  doubly  anxious  to  be  landed.  But  our  stern  com- 
mander, for  we  were  on  a  government  boat,  would  not 
listen  to  their  prayers,  but  carried  us  instead  on  board  the 
"Pensacola,"  a  sloop-of-war  which  was  now  lying  in  the 
river,  ready  to  go  to  sea,  and  ready  also  to  run  the  gant- 
let of  the  rebel  batteries  which  lined  the  Virginian  shore  of 
the  river  for  many  miles  down  below  Alexandria  and  Mount 
Vernon.  A  sloop-of-war  in  these  days  means  a  large  man- 
of-war,  the  guns  of  which  are  so  big  that  they  only  stand  on 
one  deck,  whereas  a  frigate  would  have  them  on  two  decks, 
and  a  line-of-battle  ship  on  three.  Of  line-of-battle  ships 
there  will,  I  suppose,  soon  be  none,  as  the  "Warrior"  is 
only  a  frigate.  We  went  over  the  "Pensacola,"  and  I  must 
say  she  was  very  nice,  pretty,  and  clean.  I  have  always 
found  American  sailors  on  their  men-of-war  to  be  clean  and 
nice  looking — as  much  so  I  should  say  as  our  own;  but 
nothing  can  be  dirtier,  more  untidy,  or  apparently  more  ill 
preserved  than  all  the  appurtenances  of  their  soldiers. 

We  landed  also  on  this  occasion  at  Alexandria,  and  saw 
as  melancholy  and  miserable  a  town  as  the  mind  of  man  can 
conceive.  Its  ordinary  male  population,  counting  by  the 
voters,  is  1500,  and  of  these  TOO  were  in  the  Southern 
army.  The  place  had  been  made  a  hospital  for  Northern 
soldiers,  and  no  doubt  the  site  for  that  purpose  had  been 
well  chosen.  But  let  any  woman  imagine  what  would  be 
the  feelings  of  her  life  while  living  in  a  town  used  as  a  hos- 
pital for  the  enemies  against  whom  her  absent  husband  was 
then  fighting.  Her  own  man  would  be  away — ill,  wounded, 
dying,  for  what  she  knew,  without  the  comfort  of  any  hos- 


MOUNT  VERNON. 


25 


pital  attendance,  without  physic,  with  no  one  to  comfort 
liim ;  but  those  she  hated  with  a  hatred  much  keener  than 
his  were  close  to  her  hand,  using  some  friend's  house  that 
had  been  forcibly  taken,  crawling  out  into  the  sun  under 
her' eyes,  taking  the  bread  from  her  mouth!  Life  in  Alex- 
andria at  this  time  must  have  been  sad  enough.  The  people 
were  all  secessionists,  but  the  town  was  held  by  the  North- 
ern party.  Through  the  lines,  into  Virginia,  they  could 
not  go  at  all.  Up  to  Washington  they  could  not  go  with- 
out a  military  pass,  not  to  be  obtained  without  some  cause 
given.  All  trade  was  at  an  end.  In  no  town  at  that  time 
was  trade  very  flourishing;  but  here  it  was  killed  alto- 
gether— except  that  absolutely  necessary  trade  of  bread. 
Who  would  buy  boots  or  coats,  or  want  new  saddles,  or 
waste  money  on-  books,  in  such  days  as  these,  in  such  a 
town  as  Alexandria?  And  then  out  of  1500  men,  one- 
half  had  gone  to  fight  the  Southern  battles  I  Among  the 
women  of  Alexandria  secession  would  have  found  but  few 
opponents. 

It  was  here  that  a  hot-brained  young  man,  named  Ells- 
worth, was  killed  in  the  early  days  of  the  rebellion.  He 
was  a  colonel  in  the  Northern  volunteer  army,  and  on 
entering  Alexandria  found  a  secession  flag  flying  at  the 
chief  hotel.  Instead  of  sending  up  a  corporal's  guard  to 
remove  it,  he  rushed  up  and  pulled  it  down  with  his  own 
hand.  As  he  descended,  the  landlord  shot  him  dead,  and 
one  of  his  soldiers  shot  the  landlord  dead.  It  was  a  pity 
that  so  brave  a  lad,  who  had  risen  so  high,  should  fall  so 
vainly;  but  they  have  made  a  hero  of  him  in  America; 
have  inscribed  his  name  on  marble  monuments,  and  counted 
him  up  among  their  great  men.  In  all  this  their  mistake  is 
very  great.  It  is  bad  for  a  country  to  have  no  names 
worthy  of  monumental  brass;  but  it  is  worse  for  a  country 
to  have  monumental  brasses  covered  with  names  which  have 
never  been  made  worthy  of  such  honor.  Ellsworth  had 
shown  himself  to  be  brave  and  foolish.  Let  his  folly  be 
pardoned  on  the  score  of  his  courage,  and  there,  I  think, 
should  have  been  an  end  of  it. 

I  found  afterward  that  Mount  Yernon  was  accessible, 
and  I  rode  thither  with  some  officers  of  the  staff  of  General 
Heintzelman,  whose  outside  pickets  were  stationed  beyond 
the  old  place,  I  certainly  should  not  have  been  well  pleased 
had  I  been  forced  to  leave  the  country  without  seeing  the 

VOL.  II. — 3 


26 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


house  in  which  Washington  had  lived  and  died.  Till  lately 
this  place  was  owned  and  inhabited  by  one  of  the  family,  a 
Washington,  descended  from  a  brother  of  the  general's; 
but  it  has  now  become  the  property  of  the  country,  under 
the  auspices  of  Mr.  Everett,  by  whose  exertions  was  raised 
the  money  with  which  it  was  purchased.  It  is  a  long  house, 
of  two  stories,  built,  I  think,  chiefly  of  wood,  with  a 
veranda,  or  rather  long  portico,  attached  to  the  front, 
which  looks  upon  the  river.  There  are  two  wings,  or  sets 
of  outhouses,  containing  the  kitchen  and  servants'  rooms, 
which  were  joined  by  open  wooden  verandas  to  the  main 
building ;  but  one  of  these  verandas  has  gone,  under  the 
influence  of  years.  By  these  a  semicircular  sweep  is  formed 
before  the  front  door,  which  opens  away  from  the  river,  and 
toward  the  old  prim  gardens,  in  which,  we  were  told.  General 
¥/ashington  used  to  take  much  delight.  There  is  nothing 
very  special  about  the  house.  Indeed,  as  a  house,  it  would 
now  be  found  comfortless  and  inconvenient.  But  the  ground 
falls  well  down  to  the  river,  and  the  timber,  if  not  fine,  is 
plentiful  and  picturesque.  The  chief  interest  of  the  place, 
however,  is  in  the  tomb  of  Washington  and  his  wife.  It 
must  be  understood  that  it  was  a  common  practice  through- 
out the  States  to  make  a  family  buryiug-ground  in  any 
secluded  spot  on  the  family  property.  I  have  not  unfre- 
quently  come  across  these  in  my  rambles,  and  in  Virginia  I 
have  encountered  small,  unpretending  gravestones  under  a 
shady  elm,  dated  as  lately  as  eight  or  ten  years  back.  At 
Mount  Yernon  there  is  now  a  cemetery  of  the  Washington 
family;  and  there,  in  an  open  vault — a  vault  open,  but 
guarded  by  iron  grating — is  the  great  man's  tomb,  and  by 
his  side  the  tomb  of  Martha  his  wife.  As  I  stood  there 
alone,  with  no  one  by  to  irritate  me  by  assertions  of  the 
man's  absolute  supremacy,  I  acknowledged  that  I  had  come 
to  the  final  resting-place  of  a  great  and  good  man, — of  a 
man  whose  patriotism  was,  I  believe,  an  honest  feeling,  un- 
tinged  by  any  personal  ambition  of  a  selfish  nature.  That 
he  was  pre-eminently  a  successful  man  may  have  been  due 
chiefly  to  the  excellence  of  his  cause,  and  the  blood  and 
character  of  the  people  who  put  him  forward  as  their  right 
arm  in  their  contest;  but  that  he  did  not  mar  that  success 
by  arrogance,  or  destroy  the  brightness  of  his  own  name  by 
personal  aggrandizement,  is  due  to  a  noble  nature  and  to 
the  calm  individual  excellence  of  the  man. 


DESPONDENCY  AT  WASHINGTON. 


2t 


Considering  the  circumstances  and  history  of  the  place, 
the  position  of  Mount  Yernon,  as  I  saw  it,  was  very  re- 
markable. It  lay  exactly  between  the  lines  of  the  two 
armies.  The  pickets  of  the  Northern  array  had  been  ex- 
tended beyond  it,  not  improbably  with  the  express  intention 
of  keeping  a  spot  so  hallowed  within  the  power  of  the 
Northern  government.  But  since  the  war  began  it  had 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  seceders.  In  fact,  it  stood  there 
in  the  middle  of  the  battle-held,  on  the  very  line  of  division 
between  loyalism  and  secession.  And  this  was  the  spot 
which  Washington  had  selected  as  the  heart  and  center, 
and  safest  rallying  homestead  of  the  united  nation  which  he 
left  behind  him.  But  Washington,  when  he  resolved  to 
found  his  capital  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  knew  nothing 
of  the  glories  of  the  Mississippi.  He  did  not  dream  of  the 
speedy  addition  to  his  already  gathered  constellations  of 
those  Western  stars — of  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Minnesota,  and 
Iowa;  nor  did  he  dream  of  Texas  conquered,  Louisiana  pur- 
chased, and  Missouri  and  Kansas  rescued  from  the  wilderness. 

I  have  said  that  Washington  was  at  that  time — the 
Christmas  of  1861-62  —  a  melancholy  place.  This  was 
partly  owing  to  the  despondent  tone  in  which  so  many 
Americans  then  spoke  of  their  own  affairs.  It  was  not  that 
the  Northern  men  thought  that  they  were  to  be  beaten,  or 
that  the  Southern  men  feared  that  things  were  going  bad 
with  their  party  across  the  river ;  but  that  nobody  seemed 
to  have  any  faith  in  anybody.  McClellan  had  been  put  up 
as  the  true  man — exalted  perhaps  too  quickly,  considering 
the  limited  opportunities  for  distinguishing  himself  which 
fortune  had  thrown  in  his  way ;  but  now  belief  in  McClellan 
seemed  to  be  slipping  away.  One  felt  that  it  was  so  from 
day  to  day,  though  it  was  impossible  to  define  how  or 
whence  the  feeling  came.  And  then  the  character  of  the 
ministry  fared  still  worse  in  public  estimation.  That  Lin- 
coln, the  President,  was  honest,  and  that  Chase,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  was  able,  was  the  only  good  that  one 
heard  spoken.  At  this  time  two  Jonahs  were  specially 
pointed  out  as  necessary  sacrifices,  by  whose  immersion 
into  the  comfortless  ocean  of  private  life  the  ship  might 
perhaps  be  saved.  These  were  Mr.  Cameron,  the  Secretary 
of  War,  and  Mr.  Welles,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  It 
was  said  that  Lincoln,  when  pressed  to  rid  his  cabinet  of 
Cameron,  had  replied,  that  when  a  man  was  crossing  a 


28 


NORTH  A:MEiaCA. 


stream  the  moment  was  hardly  convenient  for  changing 
Ills  horse ;  but  it  came  to  that  at  last,  that  he  found  he 
must  change  his  horse,  even  in  the  very  sharpest  run  of  the 
river.  Better  that  than  sit  an  animal  on  whose  exertions 
he  knew  that  he  could  not  trust.  So  Mr.  Cameron  went, 
and  Mr.  Stanton  became  Secretary  of  War  in  his  place. 
But  Mr.  Cameron,  though  put  out  of  the  cabinet,  was  to 
be  saved  from  absolute  disgrace  by  being  sent  as  Minister 
to  Russia.  I  do  not  know  that  it  would  become  me  here 
to  repeat  the  accusations  made  against  Mr.  Cameron,  but 
it  had  long  seemed  to  me  that  the  maintenance  in  such  a 
position,  at  such  a  time,  of  a  gentleman  who  had  to  sustain 
such  a  universal  absence  of  public  confidence,  must  have 
been  most  detrimental  to  the  army  and  to  the  government. 

Men  whom  one  met  in  Washington  were  not  unhappy 
about  the  state  of  things,  as  I  had  seen  men  unhappy 
in  the  North  and  in  the  West.  They  were  mainly  indif- 
ferent, but  with  that  sort  of  indifference  which  arises  from 
a  break  down  of  faith  in  anything.  ''There  was  the  army  I 
Yes,  the  army  !  But  what  an  army  !  Nobody  obeyed  any- 
body. Nobody  did  anything !  Nobody  thought  of  ad- 
vancing !  There  were,  perhaps,  two  hundred  thousand  men 
assembled  round  Washington;  and  now  the  effort  of  sup- 
plying them  with  food  and  clothing  was  as  much  as  could 
be  accomplished !  But  the  contractors,  in  the  mean  time, 
were  becoming  rich.  And  then  as  to  the  government ! 
Who  trusted  it?  Who  would  put  their  faith  in  Seward 
and  Cameron?  Cameron  was  now  gone,  it  was  true;  and 
in  that  way  the  whole  of  the  cabinet  would  soon  be  broken 
up.  As  to  Congress,  what  could  Congress  do?  Ask  ques- 
tions which  no  one  would  care  to  answer,  and  finally  get 
itself  packed  up  and  sent  home."  The  President  and  the 
Constitution  fared  no  better  in  men's  mouths.  The  former 
did  nothing — neither  harm  nor  good ;  and  as  for  the  latter, 
it  had  broken  down  and  shown  itself  to  be  inefficient.  So 
men  ate,  and  drank,  and  laughed,  waiting  till  chaos  should 
come,  secure  in  the  belief  that  the  atoms  into  which  their 
world  would  resolve  itself  would  connect  themselves  again 
in  some  other  form  without  trouble  on  their  part. 

And  at  Washington  I  found  no  strong  feeling  against 
England  and  English  conduct  toward  America.  We  men 
of  the  world,"  a  Washington  man  might  have  said,  "know 
very  well  that  everybody  must  take  care  of  himself  first. 


SOCIETY  OF  WASHINGTON. 


29 


"We  are  very  good  friends  with  you — of  course,  and  are  very 
glad  to  see  you  at  our  table  whenever  you  come  across  the 
water;  but  as  for  rejoicing  at  your  joys,  or  expecting  you 
to  sympathize  with  our  sorrows,  we  know  the  world  too 
well  for  that.  We  are  splitting  into  pieces,  and  of  course 
that  is  gain  to  you.  Take  another  cigar."  This  polite, 
fashionable,  and  certainly  comfortable  way  of  looking  at 
the  matter  had  never  been  attained  at  New  York  or  Phila- 
delphia, at  Boston  or  Chicago.  The  Northern  provincial 
world  of  the  States  had  declared  to  itself  that  those  who 
were  not  with  it  were  against  it;  that  its  neighbors  should 
be  either  friends  or  foes;  that  it  would  understand  nothing 
of  neutrality.  This  was  often  mortifying  to  me,  but  I  think 
I  liked  it  better  on  the  whole  than  the  laisser-aller  indiffer- 
ence of  Washington. 

Everybody  acknowledged  that  society  in  Washington 
had  been  almost  destroyed  by  the  loss  of  the  Southern  half 
of  the  usual  sojourners  in  the  city.  The  Senators  and  mem- 
bers of  government,  who  heretofore  had  come  from  the 
Southern  States,  had  no  doubt  spent  more  money  in  the 
capital  than  their  Northern  brethren.  They  and  their  fami- 
lies had  been  more  addicted  to  social  pleasures.  They  are 
the  descendants  of  the  old  English  Cavaliers,  whereas  the 
Northern  men  have  come  from  the  old  English  Roundheads. 
Or  if,  as  may  be  the  case,  the  blood  of  the  races  has  now 
been  too  well  mixed  to  allow  of  this  being  said  with  abso- 
lute truth,  yet  something  of  the  manners  of  the  old  fore- 
fathers has  been  left.  The  Southern  gentleman  is  more 
genial,  less  dry — I  will  not  say  more  hospitable,  but  more 
given  to  enjoy  hospitality  than  his  Northern  brother;  and 
this  difference  is  quite  as  strong  with  the  women  as  with 
the  men.  It  may  therefore  be  un^lerstood  that  secession 
would  be  very  fatal  to  the  society  of  Washington.  It  was 
not  only  that  the  members  of  Congress  were  not  there.  As 
to  very  many  of  the  Representatives,  it  may  be  said  that 
they  do  not  belong  sufficiently  to  Washington  to  make  a 
part  of  its  society.  It  is  not  every  Representative  that  is, 
perhaps,  qualified  to  do  so.  But  secession  had  taken  away 
from  Washington  those  who  held  property  in  the  South — 
who  were  bound  to  the  South  by  any  ties,  whether  political 
or  other;  who  belonged  to  the  South  by  blood,  education, 
and  old  habits.  In  very  many  cases — nay,  in  most  such 
cases — it  had  been  necessary  that  a  man  should  select 

VOL.  II.— 3* 


30 


KORTH  AMERICA, 


whether  he  would  be  a  friend  to  the  South,  and  therefore  a 
rebel ;  or  else  an  enemy  to  the  South,  and  therefore  untrue 
to  all  the  predilections  and  sympathies  of  his  life.  Here 
has  been  the  hardship.  For  such  people  there  has  been 
no  neutrality  possible.  Ladies  even  have  not  been  able  to 
profess  themselves  simply  anxious  for  peace  and  good-will, 
and  so  to  remain  tranquil.  They  who  are  not  for  me  are 
against  me,  has  been  spoken  by  one  side  and  by  the  other. 
And  I  suppose  that  in  all  civil  war  it  is  necessary  that  it 
should  be  so.  I  heard  of  various  cases  in  which  father  and 
son  had  espoused  different  sides  in  order  that  property 
might  be  retained  both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South. 
Under  such  circumstances  it  may  be  supposed  that  society 
in  Washington  would  be  considerably  cut  up.  All  this 
made  the  place  somewhat  melancholy. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CONGRESS. 

In  the  interior  of  the  Capitol  much  space  is  at  present 
wasted,  but  this  arises  from  the  fact  of  great  additions  to 
the  original  plan  having  been  made.  The  two  chambers — 
that  of  the  Senate  and  the  Representatives — are  in  the  two 
new  wings,  on  the  middle  or  what  we  call  the  first  floor. 
The  entrance  is  made  under  a  dome  to  a  large  circular  hall, 
which  is  hung  around  with  surely  the  worst  pictures  by  which 
a  nation  ever  sought  to  glorify  its  own  deeds.  There  are 
yards  of  paintings  atYersailles  which  are  bad  enough;  but 
there  is  nothing  at  Versailles  comparable  in  villany  to  the 
huge  daubs  which  are  preserved  in  this  hall  at  the  Capitol. 
It  is  strange  that  even  self-laudatory  patriotism  should  de- 
sire the  perpetuation  of  such  rubbish.  When  I  was  there 
the  new  dome  was  still  in  progress ;  and  an  ugly  column  of 
wood-work,  required  for  internal  support  and  affording  a 
staircase  to  the  top,  stood  in  this  hall.  This  of  course  was 
a  temporary  and  necessary  evil ;  but  even  this  was  hung 
around  with  the  vilest  of  portraits. 

From  the  hall,  turning  to  the  left,  if  the  entrance  be  made 
at  the  front  door,  one  goes  to  the  new  Chamber  of  Repre- 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES. 


31 


sentatives,  passing  through  that  which  was  tho  ohl  chamber. 
This  is  now  dedicated  to  the  exposition  of  various  new  fig- 
ures by  Crawford,  and  to  the  sale  of  tarts  and  gingerbread 
— of  very  bad  tarts  and  gingerbread.  Let  tliat  old  woman 
look  to  it,  or  let  the  House  dismiss  her.  In  fact,  this  cham- 
ber is  now  but  a  vestibule  to  a  passage — a  second  hall,  as  it 
were,  and  thus  thrown  away.  Changes  probably  will  be 
made  which  will  bring  it  into  some  use  or  some  scheme  of 
ornamentation.  From  this  a  passage  runs  to  the  Repre- 
sentative Chamber,  passing  between  those  tell-tale  windows, 
which,  looking  to  the  right  and  left,  proclaim  the  tenuity  of 
the  building.  The  windows  on  one  side — that  looking  to 
the  east  or  front — should,  I  think,  be  closed.  The  appear- 
ance, both  from  the  inside  and  from  the  outside,  would  be 
thus  improved. 

The  liepresentative  Chamber  itself — which  of  course  an- 
swers to  our  House  of  Commons — is  a  handsome,  commo- 
dious room,  admirably  fitted  for  the  purposes  required.  It 
strikes  one  as  rather  low ;  but  I  doubt,  if  it  were  higher, 
whether  it  would  be  better  adapted  for  hearing.  Even  at 
present  it  is  not  perfect  in  this  respect  as  regards  the  listen- 
ers in  the  gallery.  It  is  a  handsome,  long  chamber,  lighted 
by  skylights  from  the  roof,  and  is  amply  large  enough  for 
the  number  to  be  accommodated.  The  Speaker  sits  oppo- 
site to  the  chief  entrance,  his  desk  being  fixed  against  the 
opposite  wall.  He  is  thus  brought  nearer  to  the  body  of 
the  men  before  him  than  is  the  case  with  our  Speaker.  He 
sits  at  a  marble  table,  and  the  clerks  below  him  are  also 
accommodated  with  marble.  Every  Representative  has  his 
own  arm-chair,  and  his  own  desk  before  it.  This  may  be  done 
for  a  house  consisting  of  about  two  hundred  and  forty  mem- 
bers, but  could  hardly  be  contrived  with  us.  These  desks 
are  arranged  in  a  semicircular  form,  or  in  a  broad  horse- 
shoe, and  every  member  as  he  sits  faces  the  Speaker.  A 
score  or  so  of  little  boys  are  always  running  about  the  floor 
ministering  to  the  members'  wishes — carrying  up  petitions 
to  the  chair,  bringing  water  to  long-winded  legislators,  de- 
livering and  carrying  out  letters,  and  running  with  general 
messages.  They  do  not  seem  to  interrupt  the  course  of 
business,  and  yet  they  are  the  liveliest  little  boys  I  ever 
saw.  When  a  member  claps  his  hands,  indicating  a  desire 
for  attendance,  three  or  four  will  jockey  for  the  honor.  On 
tlie  whole,  I  thought  the  little  boys  had  a  good  time  of  it. 


32 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


But  uot  SO  the  Speaker.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  amount 
of  work  falling  upon  the  Speaker's  shoulders  was  cruelly 
heavy.  His  voice  was  always  ringing  in  my  ears  exactly  as 
does  the  voice  of  the  croupier  at  a  gambling-table,  who  goes 
on  declaring  and  explaining  the  results  of  the  game,  and 
who  generally  does  so  in  sharp,  loud,  ringing  tones,  from 
which  all  interest  in  the  proceeding  itself  seems  to  be  ex- 
cluded. It  was  just  so  with  the  Speaker  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  The  debate  was  always  full  of  interrup- 
tions; but  on  every  interruption  ihe  Speaker  asked  the 
gentleman  interrupted  whether  he  would  consent  to  be  so 
treated.  "  The  gentleman  from  Indiana  has  the  floor." 
"  The  gentleman  from  Ohio  wishes  to  ask  the  gentleman 
from  Indiana  a  question."  "The  gentleman  from  Indiana 
gives  permission."  "  The  gentleman  from  Ohio  1" — these  last 
words  being  a  summons  to  him  of  Oiiio  to  get  up  and  ask 
his  question.  "The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  rises  to 
order."  "The  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  is  in  order." 
And  then  the  House  seems  always  to  be  voting,  and  the 
Speaker  is  always  putting  the  question.  "  The  gentlemen 
who  agree  to  the  amendment  will  say  Aye."  Not  a  sound 
is  heard.  "  The  gentlemen  who  oppose  the  amendment  will 
say  No."  Again  not  a  sound.  "  The  Ayes  have  it,"  says 
the  Speaker,  and  then  he  goes  on  again.  All  this  he  does 
with  amazing  rapidity,  and  is  always  at  it  with  the  same 
hard,  quick,  ringing,  uninterested  voice.  The  gentleman 
tvhom  I  saw  in  the  chair  was  very  clever,  and  quite  up  to 
the  task.  But  as  for  dignity  —  !  Perhaps  it  might  be 
found  that  any  great  accession  of  dignity  would  impede  the 
celerity  of  the  work  to  be  done,  and  that  a  closer  copy  of 
the  British  model  might  not  on  the  whole  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  American  machine. 

When  any  matter  of  real  interest  occasioned  a  vote,  the 
ayes  and  noes  would  be  given  aloud  ;  and  then,  if  there 
w^ere  a  doubt  arising  from  the  volume  of  sound,  the  Speaker 
would  declare  that  the  "ayes"  or  the  "  noes"  would  seem 
to  have  it !  And  upon  this  a  poll  would  be  demanded.  In 
such  cases  the  Speaker  calls  on  two  members,  who  come 
forth  and  stand  fronting  each  other  before  the  chair,  making 
a  gangway.  Through  this  the  ayes  walk  like  sheep,  the  tell- 
ers giving  them  an  accelerating  poke  when  they  fail  to  go 
on  with  rapidity.  Thus  they  are  counted,  and  the  noes  are 
counted  in  the  same  way.    It  seemed  to  me  that  it  would 


THE  SENATE. 


33 


be  very  possible  in  a  dishonest  legislator  to  vote  twice  on 
any  subject  of  great  interest ;  but  it  may  perhaps  be  the 
case  that  there  are  no  dishonest  legislators  in  the  House  of 
Representatives. 

According  to  a  list  which  I  obtained,  the  present  number 
of  members  is  173,  and  there  are  63  vacancies  occasioned 
by  secession.  New  York  returns  33  members  ;  Pennsylva- 
nia, 25  ;  Ohio,  21  ;  Virginia,  13;  Massachusetts  and  Indi- 
ana, 11  ;  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  10  ;  South  Carolina,  6; 
and  so  on,  till  Delaware,  Kansas,  and  Florida  return  only 
1  each.  When  the  Constitution  was  framed,  Pennsylvania 
returned  8,  and  New  York  only  6  ;  whereas  Virginia  re- 
turned 10,  and  South  Carolina  5.  From  which  may  be 
gathered  the  relative  rate  of  increase  in  population  of  the 
free-soil  States  and  the  slave  States.  All  these  States  re- 
turn two  Senators  each  to  the  other  House — Kansas  send- 
ing as  many  as  New  York.  The  work  in  the  House  begins 
at  twelve  noon,  and  is  not  often  carried  on  late  into  the  even- 
ing. Indeed,  this,  I  think,  is  never  done  till  toward  the  end 
of  the  session. 

The  Senate  House  is  in  the  opposite  wing  of  the  build- 
ing, the  position  of  the  one  house  answering  exactly  to  that 
of  the  other.  It  is  somewhat  smaller,  but  is,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  much  less  crowded.  There  are  34  States,  and, 
therefore,  68  seats  and  68  desks  only  are  required.  These 
also  are  arranged  in  a  horseshoe  form,  and  face  the  Presi- 
dent; but  there  was  a  sad  array  of  empty  chairs  when  I 
was  in  Washington,  nineteen  or  twenty  seats  being  vacant 
in  consequence  of  secession.  In  this  house  the  Yice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  United  States  acts  as  President,  but  has  by  no 
means  so  hard  a  job  of  work  as  his  brother  on  the  other 
side  of  the  way.  Mr.  Hannibal  Hamlin,  from  Maine,  now 
fills  this  chair.  I  was  driven,  while  in  Washington,  to  ob- 
serve something  amounting  almost  to  a  peculiarity  in  the 
Christian  names  of  the  gentlemen  who  w^ere  then  adminis- 
trating the  government  of  the  country.  Mr.  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  the  President;  Mr.  Hannibal  Hamlin,  the 
Yice-President ;  Mr.  Galusha  Grow,  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives;  Mr.  Salmon  Chase,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury;  Mr.  Caleb  Smith,  the  Attorney- 
General;  Mr.  Simon  Cameron,  the  Secretary  of  War;  and 
Mr.  Gideon  Welles,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

In  the  Senate  House,  as  in  the  other  house,  there  are 


34 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


very  commodious  galleries  for  strangers,  running  round  the 
entire  chambers,  and  these  galleries  are  open  to  all  the 
world.  As  with  all  such  places  in  the  States,  a  large  por- 
tion of  them  is  appropriated  to  ladies.  But  I  came  at  last 
to  find  that  the  word  lady  signified  a  female  or  a  decently 
dressed  man.  Any  arrangement  for  classes  is  in  America 
impossible;  the  seats  intended  for  gentlemen  must,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  be  open  to  all  men ;  but  by  giving  up  to 
the  rougher  sex  half  the  amount  of  accommodation  nomi- 
nally devoted  to  ladies,  the  desirable  division  is  to  a  certain 
extent  made.  I  generally  found  that  I  could  obtain  admit- 
tance to  the  ladies'  gallery  if  my  coat  were  decent  and  I  had 
gloves  with  me. 

All  the  adjuncts  of  both  these  chambers  are  rich  and  in 
good  keeping.  The  staircases  are  of  marble,  and  the  out- 
side passages  and  lobbies  are  noble  in  size  and  in  every  way 
convenient.  One  knows  well  the  trouble  of  getting  into 
the  House  of  Lords  and  House  of  Commons,  and  the  want 
of  comfort  which  attends  one  there;  and  an  Englishman 
cannot  fail  to  make  comparisons  injurious  to  his  own  coun- 
try. It  would  not,  perhaps,  be  possible  to  welcome  all  the 
world  in  London  as  is  done  in  Washington,  but  there  can 
be  no  good  reason  why  the  space  given  to  the  public  with 
us  should  not  equal  that  given  in  Washington.  But,  so 
far  are  we  from  sheltering  the  public,  that  we  have  made 
our  House  of  Commons  so  small  that  it  will  not  even  hold 
all  its  own  members. 

I  had  an  opportunity  of  being  present  at  one  of  their 
field  days  in  the  Senate.  Slidell  and  Alason  had  just  then 
been  sent  from  Fort  Warren  across  to  England  in  the  Ri- 
naldo.  And  here  I  may  as  well  say  what  further  there  is 
'for  me  to  say  about  those  two  heroes.  I  was  in  Boston 
when  they  were  taken,  and  all  Boston  was  then  full  of 
them.  I  was  at  Washington  when  they  were  surrendered, 
and  at  Washington  for  a  time  their  names  were  the  only 
household  words  in  vogue.  To  me  it  had  from  the  first 
been  a  matter  of  certainty  that  England  would  demand  the 
restitution  of  the  men.  1  had  never  attempted  to  argue 
the  matter  on  the  legal  points,  but  I  felt,  as  though  by  in- 
stinct, that  it  would  be  so.  First  of  all  there  reached  us, 
by  telegram  from  Cape  Race,  rumors  of  what  the  press 
in  England  was  saying;  rumors  of  a  meeting  in  Liver- 
pool, and  rumors  of  the  feeling  in  London.    And  tlicn 


MESSRS.  SLIDELL  AND  MASON. 


35 


the  papers  followed,  and  wc  got  our  private  letters.  It 
was  some  days  before  we  knew  what  was  aetiially  the 
demand  made  by  Lord  Palmerston's  cabinet;  and  during 
this  time,  through  the  five  or  six  days  which  were  thus 
passed,  it  was  clear  to  be  seen  that  the  American  feeling 
was  undergoing  a  great  change — or  if  not  the  feeling,  at 
any  rate  the  purpose.  Men  now  talked  of  surrendering 
these  Commissioners,  as  though  it  were  a  line  of  conduct 
which  Mr.  Seward  might  find  convenient;  and  then  men 
went  further,  and  said  that  Mr.  Seward  would  find  any 
other  line  of  conduct  very  inconvenient.  The  newspapers, 
one  after  another,  came  round.  That,  under  all  these  cir- 
cumstances, the  States  government  behaved  well  in  the 
matter,  no  one,  I  think,  can  deny;  but  the  newspapers, 
taken  as  a  whole,  were  not  very  consistent,  and,  I  think, 
not  very  dignified.  They  had  declared  with  throats  of 
brass  that  these  men  should  never  be  surrendered  to  per- 
fidious Albion;  but  when  it  came  to  be  understood  that  in 
all  probability  they  would  be  so  surrendered,  they  veered 
round  without  an  excuse,  and  spoke  of  their  surrender  as 
of  a  thing  of  course.  And  thus,  in  the  course  of  about  a 
week,  the  whole  current  of  men's  minds  was  turned.  For 
myself,  on  my  first  arrival  at  Washington,  I  felt  certain 
that  there  would  be  war,  and  was  preparing  myself  for  a 
quick  return  to  England;  but  from  the  moment  that  the 
first  whisper  of  England's  message  reached  us,  and  that  I 
began  to  hear  how  it  was  received  and  what  men  said  about 
it,  I  knew  that  I  need  not  hurry  myself.  One  met  a  minis- 
ter here,  and  a  Senator  there,  and  anon  some  wise  diplo- 
matic functionary.  By  none  of  these  grave  men  would  any 
secret  be  divulged ;  none  of  them  had  any  secret  ready  for 
divulging.  But  it  was  to  be  read  in  every  look  of  the  eye, 
in  every  touch  of  the  hand,  and  in  every  fall  of  the  foot  of 
each  of  them,  that  Mason  and  Slidell  would  go  to  England. 

Then  we  had,  in  all  the  fullness  of  diplomatic  language, 
Lord  Russell's  demand,  and  Mr.  Seward's  answer.  Lord 
Kussell's  demand  was  worded  in  language  so  mild,  was  so 
devoid  of  threat,  was  so  free  from  anger,  that  at  the  first 
reading  it  seemed  to  ask  for  nothing.  It  almost  disappointed 
by  its  mildness.  Mr.  Seward's  reply,  on  the  other  hand,  by 
its  length  of  argumentation,  by  a  certain  sharpness  of  diction, 
to  which  that  gentleman  is  addicted  in  his  State  papers, 
and  by  a  tone  of  satisfaction  Inherent  through  it  all,  seemed 


86 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


to  demand  more  than  lie  conceded.  But,  in  truth,  Lord 
Kussell  had  demanded  everything,  and  the  United  States 
government  had  conceded  everything. 

I  have  said  that  the  American  government  behaved  well 
in  its  mode  of  giving  the  men  up,  and  I  think  that  so  much 
should  be  allowed  to  them  on  a  review  of  the  whole  alfair. 
That  Captain  Wilkes  had  no  instructions  to  seize  the  two 
men,  is  a  known  fact.  He  did  seize  them,  and  brought  them 
into  Boston  harbor,  to  the  great  delight  of  his  countrymen. 
This  delight  I  could  understand,  though  of  course  I  did  not 
share  it.  One  of  these  men  had  been  the  parent  of  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law ;  the  other  had  been  great  in  fostering  the 
success  of  filibustering.  Both  of  them  were  hot  seces- 
sionists, and  undoubtedly  rebels.  No  two  men  on  the  con- 
tinent were  more  grievous  in  their  antecedents  and  present 
characters  to  all  Northern  feeling.  It  is  impossible  to  deny 
that  they  were  rebels  against  the  government  of  their  country. 
That  Captain  Wilkes  was  not  on  this  account  justified  in 
seizing  them,  is  now  a  matter  of  history;  but  that  the  people 
of  the  loyal  States  should  rejoice  in  their  seizure,  was  a 
matter  of  course.  Wilkes  was  received  with  an  ovation, 
which  as  regarded  him  was  ill  judged  and  undeserved,  but 
which  in  its  spirit  was  natural.  Had  the  President's  gov- 
ernment at  that  moment  disowned  the  deed  done  by  Wilkes, 
and  declared  its  intention  of  giving  up  the  men  unasked,  the 
clamor  raised  would  have  been  very  great,  and  perhaps  suc- 
cessful. We  were  told  that  th«  American  lawyers  were 
against  their  doing  so  ;  and  indeed  there  was  such  a  shout 
of  triumph  that  no  ministry  in  a  country  so  democratic 
could  have  ventured  to  go  at  once  against  it,  and  to  do  so 
without  any  external  pressure. 

Then  came  the  one  ministerial  blunder.  The  President 
put  forth  his  message,  in  which  he  was  cunningly  silent  on 
the  Slidell  and  Mason  affair ;  but  to  his  message  was  ap- 
pended, according  to  custom,  the  report  from  Mr.  Welles, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  In  this  report  approval  was 
expressed  of  the  deed  done  by  Captain  Wilkes.  Captain 
Wilkes  was  thus  in  all  respects  indemnified,  and  the 
blame,  if  any,  was  taken  from  his  shoulders  and  put  on 
to  the  shoulders  of  that  officer  who  was  responsible  for 
the  Secretary's  letter.  It  is  true  that  in  that  letter  the 
Secretary  declared  that  in  case  of  any  future  seizure  the 
vessel  seized  must  be  taken  into  port,  and  so  declared  in 


MESSRS.  SLIDELL  AND  MASON. 


37 


animadverting  on  the  fact  that  Captain  Wilkes  liad  not 
brought  the  "Trent"  into  port.  But,  nevertheless,  Secre- 
tary Welles  api)roved  of  Captain  Wilkes's  conduct.  He 
allowed  the  reasons  to  be  good  which  Wilkes  had  put  for- 
ward for  leaving  the  ship,  and  in  all'  respects  indemnified 
the  captain.  Then  the  responsibility  shifted  itself  to  Sec- 
retary Welles ;  but  I  think  it  must  be  clear  that  the  Presi- 
dent, in  sending  forward  that  report,  took  that  responsibility 
upon  himself.  That  he  is  not  bound  to  send  forward  the 
reports  of  his  Secretaries  as  he  receives  them — that  he  can 
disapprove  them  and  require  alteration,  was  proved  at  the 
very  time  by  the  fact  that  he  had  in  this  way  condemned 
Secretary  Cameron's  report,  and  caused  a  portion  of  it  to 
be  omitted.  Secretary  Cameron  had  unfortunately  allowed 
his  entire  report  to  be  printed,  and  it  appeared  in  a  New 
York  paper.  It  contained  a  recommendation  with  refer- 
ence to  the  slave  question  most  ofiensive  to  a  part  of  the 
cabinet,  and  to  the  majority  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  party.  This, 
by  order  of  the  President,  was  omitted  in  the  official  way. 
It  was  certainly  a  pity  that  Mr.  Welles's  paragraph  respect- 
ing the  ''Trent"  was  not  omitted  also.  The  President  was 
dumb  on  the  matter,  and  that  being  so  the  Secretary  should 
have  been  dumb  also. 

But  when  the  demand  was  made,  the  States  government 
yielded  at  once,  and  yielded  without  bluster.  I  cannot  say 
I  much  admired  Mr.  Seward's  long  letter.  It  was  full  of 
smart  special  pleading,  and  savored  strongly,  as  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's productions  always  do,  of  the  personal  author.  Mr. 
Seward  was  making  an  effort  to  pface  a  great  State  paper 
on  record,  but  the  ars  celare  ariem  was  altogether  wanting; 
and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  he  was  without  the  art  itself  I 
think  he  left  the  matter  very  much  where  he  found  it.  The 
men,  however,  were  to  be  surrendered,  and  the  good  policy 
consisted  in  this,  that  no  delay  was  sought,  no  diplomatic 
ambiguities  were  put  into  request.  It  was  the  opinion  of 
very  many  that  some  two  or  three  months  might  be  gained 
by  correspondence,  and  that  at  the  end  of  that  time  things 
might  stand  on  a  different  footing.  If  during  that  time 
the  North  should  gain  any  great  success  over  the  South,  the 
States  might  be  in  a  position  to  disregard  England's  threats. 
No  such  game  was  played.  The  illegality  of  the  arrest  was 
at  once  acknowledged,  and  the  men  were  given  up  with  a 
VOL.  II. — 4 


38 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tranquillity  that  certainly  appeared  marvelous  after  all  that 
had  so  lately  occurred. 

Then  came  Mr.  Sumner's  field  day.  Mr.  Charles  Sum- 
ner is  a  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  known  as  a  very  hot 
abolitionist,  and  as  having  been  the  victim  of  an  attack 
made  upon  him  in  the  Senate  House  by  Senator  Brooks. 
He  was  also,  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing,  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  which  position  is  as 
near  akin  to  that  of  a  British  minister  in  Parliament  as  can 
be  attained  under  the  existing  Constitution  of  the  States. 
It  is  not  similar,  because  such  chairman  is  by  no  means 
bound  to  the  government;  but  he  has  ministerial  relations, 
and  is  supposed  to  be  specially  conversant  with  all  questions 
relating  to  foreign  affairs.  It  was  understood  that  Mr. 
Sumner  did  not  intend  to  find  fault  either  with  England  or 
with  the  government  of  his  own  country  as  to  its  manage- 
ment of  this  matter ;  or  that,  at  least,  such  fault-finding 
was  not  his  special  object,  but  that  he  was  desirous  to  put 
forth  views  which  might  lead  to  a  final  settlement  of  all 
difficulties  with  reference  to  the  right  of  international  search. 

On  such  an  occasion,  a  speaker  gives  himself  very  little 
chance  of  making  a  favorable  impression  on  his  immediate 
hearers  if  he  reads  his  speech  from  a  written  manuscript. 
Mr.  Sumner  did  so  on  this  occasion,  and  I  must  confess 
that  I  was  not  edified.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he  merely 
repeated,  at  greater  length,  the  arguments  which  I  had  heard 
fifty  times  during  the  last  thirty  or  forty  days.  I  am  told 
that  the  discourse  is  considered  to  be  logical,  and  that  it 
"reads"  well.  As  regards  the  gist  of  it,  or  that  result 
w^hich  Mr.  Sumner  thinks  to  be  desirable,  I  fully  agree  with 
him,  as  I  think  will  all  the  civilized  world  before  many  years 
have  passed.  If  international  law  be  what  the  lawyers  say  it 
is,  international  law  must  be  altered  to  suit  the  requirements 
of  modern  civilization.  By  those  laws,  as  they  are  con- 
strued, everything  is  to  be  done  for  two  nations  at  w^ar  with 
each  other;  but  nothing  is  to  be  done  for  all  the  nations  of 
the  world  that  can  manage  to  maintain  the  peace.  The 
belligerents  are  to  be  treated  with  every  delicacy,  as  we 
treat  our  heinous  criminals;  but  the  poor  neutrals  are  to 
be  handled  with  unjust  rigor,  as  we  handle  our  unfortunate 
w^itnesses  in  order  that  the  murderer  may,  if  possible,  be 
allowed  to  escape.  Two  men  living  in  the  same  street 
choose  to  pelt  each  other  across  the  way  with  brickbats,  and 


INTERNATIONAL  LAW. 


the  other  inhabitants  are  denied  the  privileges  of  the  foot- 
path lest  they  should  interfere  with  the  due  prosecution  of 
the  quarrel !  It  is,  I  suppose,  the  truth  that  we  English 
have  insisted  on  this  right  of  search  with  more  pertinacity 
than  any  other  nation.  Now  in  this  case  of  Slidell  and 
Mason  we  have  felt  ourselves  aggrieved,  and  have  resisted. 
Luckily  for  us  there  was  no  doubt  of  the  illegality  of  the 
mode  of  seizure  in  this  instance;  but  who  will  say  that  if 
Captain  Wilkes  had  taken  the  ''Trent"  into  the  harbor  of 
New  York,  in  order  that  the  matter  might  have  been  ad- 
judged there,  England  would  have  been  satisfied  ?  Our 
grievance  was,  that  our  mail-packet  was  stopped  on  the 
seas  while  doing  its  ordinary  beneficent  work.  And  our 
resolve  is,  that  our  mail-packets  shall  not  be  so  stopped 
with  impunity.  As  we  were  high  handed  in  old  days  in 
insisting  on  this  right  of  search,  it  certainly  behoves  us  to 
see  that  we  be  just  in  our  modes  of  proceeding.  Would 
Captain  Wilkes  have  been  right,  according  to  the  existing 
hiw,  if  he  had  carried  the  "Trent"  away  to  New  York?  If 
so,  we  ought  not  to  be  content  with  having  escaped  from 
such  a  trouble  merely  through  a  mistake  on  his  part.  Lord 
Russell  says  that  the  Trent's "  voyage  was  an  innocent 
voyage.  That  is  the  fact  that  should  be  established;  not 
only  that  the  voyage  was,  in  truth,  innocent,  but  that  it 
should  not  be  made  out  to  be  guilty  by  any  international 
law.  Of  its  real  innocency  all  thinking  men  must  feel  them- 
selves assured.  But  it  is  not  only  of  the  seizure  that  we 
complain,  but  of  the  search  also.  An  honest  man  is  not  to 
be  handled  by  a  policeman  while  on  his  daily  work,  lest  by 
chance  a  stolen  watch  should  be  in  his  pocket.  If  inter- 
national law  did  give  such  power  to  all  belligerents,  inter- 
national law  must  give  it  no  longer.  In  the  beginning  of 
these  matters,  as  I  take  it,  the  object  was  when  two  power- 
ful nations  were  at  war  to  allow  the  smaller  fry  of  nations 
to  enjoy  peace  and  quiet,  and  to  avoid,  if  possible,  the  gen- 
eral scuffle.  Thence  arose  the  position  of  a  neutral.  But 
it  was  clearly  not  fair  that  any  such  nation,  having  pro- 
claimed its  neutrality,  should,  after  that,  fetch  and  carry  for 
either  of  the  combatants  to  the  prejudice  of  the  other. 
Hence  came  the  right  of  search,  in  order  that  unjust  false- 
hood might  be  prevented.  But  the  seas  were  not  then 
bridged  with  ships  as  they  are  now  bridged,  and  the  laws  as 
written  were,  perhaps,  then  practical  and  capable  of  execu- 


40 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tion.  Xow  they  are  impracticable  and  not  capable  of  execu- 
tion. It  will  not,  however,  do  for  us  to  ignore  thera  if  they 
exist ;  and  therefore  they  should  be  changed.  It  is,  I  think, 
manifest  that  our  own  pretensions  as  to  the  right  of  search 
must  be  modified  after  this.  And  now  I  trust  I  may  finish 
my  book  without  again  naming  Messrs.  Slidell  and  Mason. 

The  working  of  the  Senate  bears  little  or  no  analogy  to 
that  of  our  House  of  Lords.  In  the  first  place,  the  Senator's 
tenure  there  is  not  hereditary,  nor  is  it  for  life.  They  are 
elected,  and  sit  for  six  years.  Their  election  is  not  made 
by  the  people  of  their  States,  but  by  the  State  legislature. 
The  two  Houses,  for  instance,  of  the  State  of  Massachu- 
setts meet  together  and  elect  by  their  joint  vote  to  the 
vacant  seat  for  their  State.  It  is  so  arranged  that  an 
entirely  new  Senate  is  not  elected  every  sixth  year.  In- 
stead of  this  a  third  of  the  number  is  elected  every  second 
year.  It  is  a  common  thing  for  Senators  to  be  re-elected, 
and  thus  to  remain  in  the  House  for  twelve  and  eighteen 
years.  In  our  Parliament  the  House  of  Commons  has 
greater  political  strength  and  wider  political  action  than 
the  House  of  Lords;  but  in  Congress  the  Senate  counts 
for  more  than  the  House  of  Representatives  in  general 
opinion.  Money  bills  must  originate  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, but  that  is,  I  think,  the  only  special  privilege 
attaching  to  the  public  purse  which  the  Lower  House 
enjoys  over  the  Upper.  Amendments  to  such  bills  can  be 
moved  in  the  Senate;  and  all  such  bills  must  pass  the 
Senate  before  they  become  law.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  individual  members  of  the  Senate  work  harder  than 
individual  Representatives.  More  is  expected  of  them, 
and  any  prolonged  absence  from  duty  would  be  more 
remarked  in  the  Senate  than  in  the  other  House.  In  our 
Parliament  this  is  reversed.  The  payment  made  to  mem- 
bers of  the  Senate  is  3000  dollars,  or  600Z.,  per  annum,  and 
to  a  Representative,  bOOl.  per  annum.  To  this  is  added 
certain  mileage  allowance  for  traveling  backward  and  for- 
ward between  their  own  State  and  the  Capitol.  A  Senator, 
therefore,  from  California  or  Oregon  has  ]iot  altogether  a 
bad  place ;  but  the  halcyon  days  of  mileage  allowances 
are,  I  believe,  soon  to  be  brought  to  an  end.  It  is  quite 
within  rule  that  the  Senator  of  to-day  should  be  the  Repre- 
sentative of  to-morrow.  Mr.  Crittenden,  who  was  Senator 
from  Kentucky,  is  now  a  member  of  the  Lower  House  from 


debate'  in  congress. 


41 


an  electoral  district  in  that  State.  John  Quincy  Adams 
went  into  the  House  of  Representatives  after  he  iiad  been 
President  of  the  United  States. 

Divisions  in  the  Senate  do  not  take  place  as  in  the  House 
of  Kepresentatives.  The  ayes  and  noes  are  called  for  in 
the  same  way ;  but  if  a  poll  be  demanded,  the  Clerk  of  the 
House  calls  out  the  names  of  the  different  Senators,  and 
makes  out  lists  of  the  votes  according  to  the  separate 
answers  given  by  the  members.  The  mode  is  certainly 
more  dignified  than  that  pursued  in  the  other  House,  where 
during  the  ceremony  of  voting  the  members  look  very  much 
like  sheep  being  passed  into  their  pens. 

I  heard  two  or  three  debates  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  that  one  especially  in  which,  as  I  have  said 
before,  a  chapter  was  read  out  of  the  Book  of  Joshua. 
The  manner  in  which  the  Creator's  name  and  the  authority 
of  His  Word  was  banded  about  the  house  on  that  occasion 
did  not  strike  me  favorably.  The  question  originally  under 
debate  was  the  relative  power  of  the  civil  and  military 
authority.  Congress  had  desired  to  declare  its  ascendency 
over  military  matters,  but  the  army  and  the  Executive 
generally  had  demurred  to  this,  —  not  with  an  absolute 
denial  of  the  rights  of  Congress,  but  with  those  civil 
and  almost  silent  generalities  with  which  a  really  existing 
power  so  well  knows  how  to  treat  a  nominal  power.  The 
ascendant  wife  seldom  tells  her  husband  in  so  many  words 
that  his  opinion  in  the  house  is  to  go  for  nothing;  she 
merely  resolves  that  such  shall  be  the  case,  and  acts  accord- 
ingly. An  observer  could  not  but  perceive  that  in  those 
days  Congress  was  taking  upon  itself  the  part,  not  exactly 
of  an  obedient  husband,  but  of  a  husband  vainly  attempting 
to  assert  his  supremacy.  "I  have  got  to  learn,"  said  one 
gentleman  after  another,  rising  indignantly  on  tl  e  floor, 
"that  the  military  authority  of  our  generals  is  above  that  of 
this  House."  And  then  one  gentleman  relieved  the  difficulty 
of  the  position  by  branching  off  into  an  eloquent  discourse 
against  slavery,  and  by  causing  a  chapter  to  be  read  out  of 
the  Book  of  Joshua. 

On  that  occasion  the  gentleman's  diversion  seemed  to 
have  the  effect  of  relieving  the  House  altogether  from  the 
embarrassment  of  the  original  question  ;  but  it  was  becoming 
manifest,  day  by  day,  that  Congress  was  losing  its  ground, 
and  that  the  army  was  becoming  indifferent  to  its  thunders ; 
VOL.  II. — 4* 


42 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  the  army  was  doing  so,  and  also  that  ministers  were 
doing  so.  In  the  States,  the  President  and  his  ministers 
are  not  in  fact  subject  to  any  i)arliaraentary  responsibility. 
The  President  may  be  impeached,  but  the  member  of  an 
opposition  does  not  always  wish  to  have  recourse  to  such 
an  extreme  measure  as  impeachment.  The  ministers  arc 
not  in  the  houses,  and  cannot  therefore  personally  answer 
questions.  Different  large  subjects,  such  as  foreign  affairs, 
financial  affairs,  and  army  matters,  are  referred  to  Stand- 
ing Committees  in  both  Houses;  and  these  committees  have 
relations  with  the  ministers.  But  they  have  no  constitutional 
power  over  the  ministers;  nor  have  they  the  much  more  val- 
uable privilege  of  badgering  a  minister  hither  and  thither  by 
viva  voce  questions  on  every  point  of  his  administration. 
The  minister  sits  safe  in  his  office — safe  there  for  the  term 
of  the  existing  Presidency  if  he  can  keep  well  with  the  Presi- 
dent ;  and  therefore,  even  under  ordinary  circumstances,  does 
not  care  much  for  the  printed  or  written  messages  of  Con- 
gress. But  under  circumstances  so  little  ordinary  as  those 
of  1861-62,  while  Washington  was  surrounded  by  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  soldiers.  Congress  was  absolutely  impo- 
tent. Mr.  Seward  could  snap  his  fingers  at  Congress, 
and  he  did  so.  He  could  not  snap  his  fingers  at  the  army; 
but  then  he  could  go  with  the  army,  could  keep  the  army 
on  his  side  by  remaining  on  the  same  side  witli  the  army; 
and  this  as  it  seemed  he  resolved  to  do.  It  must  be  under- 
stood that  Mr.  Seward  was  not  Prime  Minister.  The 
President  of  the  United  States  has  no  Prime  Minister — 
or  hitherto  has  had  none.  The  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs 
has  usually  stood  highest  in  the  cabinet,  and  Mr.  Seward, 
as  holding  that  position,  was  not  inclined  to  lessen  its 
authority.  He  was  gradually  assuming  for  that  position 
the  prerogatives  of  a  Premier,  and  men  were  beginning  to 
talk  of  Mr.  Seward's  ministry.  It  may  easily  be  under- 
stood that  at  such  a  time  the  powers  of  Congress  would  be 
undefined,  and  that  ambitious  members  of  Congress  would 
rise  and  assert  on  the  floor,  with  tliat  peculiar  voice  of  in- 
dignation so  common  in  parliamentary  debate,  "that  they 
had  got  to  lear[j,"  etc.  etc.  etc.  Jt  seemed  to  me  that  the 
lesson  which  they  had  yet  to  learn  was  then  in  the  process 
of  being  taught  to  them.  They  were  anxious  to  be  told  all 
about  the  mischance  at  Bali's  Bluff,  but  nobody  would  tell 
them  anything  about  it.    They  wanted  to  know  something 


CONGRESS  AND  THE  ARMY. 


43 


of  that  blockade  on  the  Potomac;  but  such  knowledge  wag 
not  good  for  them.  "Pack  tliem  up  in  boxes,  and  send 
them  home,"  one  military  gentleman  said  to  me.  And  I 
began  to  think  that  something  of  the  kind  would  be  done, 
if  they  made  themselves  troublesome.  I  quote  here  the 
manner  in  which  their  questions,  respecting  the  affair  at 
Ball's  Bluff,  were  answered  by  the  Secretary  of  War. 
"The  Si)eaker  laid  before  the  House  a  letter  from  the 
Secretary  of  War,  in  which  he  says  that  he  has  the  honor 
to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  the  resolution  adopted  on  the 
6th  instant,  to  the  effect  that  the  answer  of  the  Department 
to  the  resolution,  passed  on  the  second  day  of  the  session, 
is  not  responsive  and  satisfactory  to  the  House,  and  request- 
ing a  further  answer.  The  Secretary  has  now  to  state  tliat 
measures  have  been  taken  to  ascertain  who  is  responsible 
for  the  disastrous  movement  at  Ball's  Bluff,  but  that  it  is 
not  compatible  with  the  public  interest  to  make  known 
those  measures  at  the  present  time." 

In  truth  the  days  are  evil  for  any  Congress  of  debaters, 
when  a  great  army  is  in  camp  on  every  side  of  them.  The 
people  had  called  for  the  army,  and  there  it  was.  It  was 
of  younger  birth  than  Congress,  and  had  thrown  its  elder 
brother  considerably  out  of  favor,  as  has  been  done  before 
by  many  a  new-born  baby.  If  Congress  could  amuse  itself 
with  a  few  set  speeches,  and  a  field  day  or  two,  such  as  those 
afforded  by  Mr.  Sumner,  it  might  all  be  very  well — provided 
that  such  speeches  did  not  attack  the  army.  Over  and  be- 
yond this,  let  them  vote  the  supplies  and  have  done  with  it. 
Was  it  probable  that  General  McClellan  should  have  time 
to  answer  questions  about  Ball's  Bluff — and  he  with  such  a 
job  of  work  on  his  hands  ?  Congress  could  of  course  vote 
what  committees  of  military  inquiry  it  might  please,  and 
might  ask  questions  without  end  ;  but  we  all  know  to  what 
such  questions  lead,  when  the  questioner  has  no  power  to 
force  an  answer  by  a  penalty.  If  it  might  be  possible  to 
maintain  the  semblance  of  respect  for  Congress,  without  too 
much  embarrassment  to  military  secretaries,  such  semblance 
should  be  maintained  ;  but  if  Congress  chose  to  make  itself 
really  disagreeable,  then  no  semblance  could  be  kept  up  any 
longer.  That,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  was  the  position  of 
Congress  in  the  early  months  of  1862  ;  and  that,  under  ex- 
isting circumstances,  was  perhaps  the  only  possible  position 
that  it  could  fill. 


44 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


All  this  to  me  was  very  melancholy.  The  streets  of 
Washington  were  always  full  of  soldiers.  Mounted  sen- 
tries stood  at  the  corners  of  all  the  streets  with  drawn 
sabers — shivering  in  the  cold  and  besmeared  with  mud.  A 
military  law  came  out  that  civilians  might  not  ride  quickly 
through  the  street.  Military  riders  galloped  over  one  at 
every  turn,  splashing  about  through  the  mud,  and  remind- 
ing one  not  unfrequently  of  John  Gilpin.  Why  they  always 
went  so  fast,  destroying  their  horses'  feet  on  the  rough 
stones,  I  could  never  learn.  But  I,  as  a  civilian,  given  as 
Englishmen  are  to  trotting,  and  furnislied  for  the  time  with 
a  nimble  trotter,  found  myself  harried  from  time  to  time  by 
muddy  men  with  sabers,  who  would  dash  after  me,  rattling 
their  trappings,  and  bid  me  go  at  a  slower  pace.  There 
is  a  building  in  Washington,  built  by  private  munificence 
and  devoted,  according  to  an  inscription  which  it  bears, 
"To  the  Arts."  It  has  been  turned  into  an  army  clothing 
establishment.  The  streets  of  Washington,  night  and  day, 
were  thronged  with  army  wagons.  All  through  the  city 
military  huts  and  military  tents  were  to  be  seen,  pitched 
out  among  the  mud  and  in  the  desert  places.  Then  there 
was  the  chosen  locality  of  the  teamsters  and  their  mules  and 
horses — a  wonderful  world  in  itself ;  and  all  within  the  city  ! 
Here  horses  and  mules  lived — or  died — sub  dio,  with  no 
slightest  apology  for  a  stable  over  them,  eating  their  prov- 
ender from  off  the  wagons  to  which  they  were  fastened. 
Here,  there,  and  everywhere  large  houses  were  occupied  as 
the  headquarters  of  some  officer,  or  the  bureau  of  some 
military  official.  At  Washington  and  round  Washington 
the  army  was  everything.  While  this  was  so,  is  it  to  be  con- 
ceived that  Congress  should  ask  questions  about  military 
matters  with  success  ? 

All  this,  as  I  say,  filled  me  with  sorrow.  I  hate  military 
belongings,  and  am  disgusted  at  seeing  the  great  affairs  of 
a  nation  put  out  of  their  regular  course.  Congress  to  me  is 
respectable.  Parliamentary  debates — be  they  ever  so  prosy, 
as  with  us,  or  even  so  rowdy,  as  sometimes  they  have  been  with 
our  cousins  across  the  water — engage  my  sympathies.  I  bow 
in'.vardly  before  a  Speaker's  chair,  and  look  upon  the  elected 
representatives  of  any  nation  as  the  choice  men  of  the  age. 
Those  muddy,  clattering  dragoons,  sitting  at  the  corners  of 
the  streets  with  dirty  woolen  comforters  around  their  ears, 
were  to  me  hideous  in  the  extreme.  But  there  at  Washington, 


CONGRESS. 


45 


at  the  period  of  wliich  I  am  writinp^,  I  was  forced  to  ac- 
knowledge t!iat  Congress  was  at  a  discount,  and  that  the 
rough-shod  generals  were  the  men  of  the  day.  "  Pack  them 
up  and  send  them  in  boxes  to  their  several  States."  It 
would  come  to  that,  I  thought,  or  to  sometliing  like  that, 
unless  Congress  would  consent  to  be  submissive.  "  I  have  yet 
to  learn  —  I"  said  indignant  members,  stamping  with  their 
feet  on  the  floor  of  the  House.  One  would  have  said  that 
by  that  time  the  lesson  might  almost  have  been  understood. 

Up  to  the  period  of  this  civil  war  Congress  has  certainly 
worked  well  for  the  United  States.  It  might  be  easy  to 
pick  holes  in  it ;  to  show  that  some  members  have  been 
corrupt,  others  quarrelsome,  and  others. again  impractica- 
ble. But  when  we  look  at  the  circumstances  under  which 
it  has  been  from  year  to  year  elected ;  when  we  remember 
the  position  of  the  newly  populated  States  from  which  the 
members  have  been  sent,  and  the  absence  throughout  the 
country  of  that  old  traditionary  class  of  Parliament  men  on 
whom  we  depend  in  England ;  when  we  think  how  recent 
has  been  the  elevation  in  life  of  the  majority  of  those  who 
are  and  must  be  elected,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  them  praise 
for  intellect,  patriotism,  good  sense,  and  diligence.  They 
began  but  sixty  years  ago,  and  for  sixty  years  Congress  has 
fully  answered  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  established. 
With  no  antecedents  of  grandeur,  the  nation,  with  its  Con- 
gress, has  made  itself  one  of  the  five  great  nations  of  the 
world.  And  what  living  English  politician  will  say  even 
now,  with  all  its  troubles  thick  upon  it,  that  it  is  the  smallest 
of  the  five?  When  I  think  of  this,  and  remember  the  posi- 
tion in  Europe  which  an  American  has  been  able  to  claim 
for  himself,  I  cannot  but  acknowledge  that  Congress  on  the 
whole  has  been  conducted  with  prudence,  wisdom,  and  pa- 
triotism. 

The  question  now  to  be  asked  is  this — Have  the  powers 
of  Congress  been  sufficient,  or  are  they  sufficient,  for  the 
continued  maintenance  of  free  government  in  the  States 
under  the  Constitution  ?  I  think  that  the  powers  given  by 
the  existing  Constitution  to  Congress  can  no  longer  be  held 
to  be  sufficient;  and  that  if  the  Union  be  maintained  at  all, 
it  must  be  done  by  a  closer  assimilation  of  its  congressional 
system  to  that  of  our  Parliament.  But  to  that  matter  I 
must  allude  again,  when  speaking  of  the  existing  Constitu- 
tion of  the  States. 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR. 

I  HAVE  seen  various  essays  purporting  to  describe  the 
causes  of  this  civil  war  between  the  North  and  South  ;  but 
they  have  generally  been  written  with  the  view  of  vindica- 
ting either  one  side  or  the  other,  and  have  spoken  rather  of 
causes  which  should,  according  to  the  ideas  of  their  writers, 
have  produced  peace,  than  of  those  which  did,  in  the  course 
of  events,  actually  produce  war.  This  has  been  essentially 
the  case  with  Mr.  Everett,  who  in  his  lecture  at  New  York, 
on  the  4th  of  July,  1860,  recapitulated  all  the  good  things 
which  the  North  has  done  for  the  South,  and  who  proved — • 
if  he  has  proved  anything — that  the  South  should  have  cher- 
ished the  North  instead  of  hating  it.  And  this  was  very 
much  the  case  also  with  Mr.  Motley  in  his  letter  to  the 
London  Times.  That  letter  is  good  in  its  way,  as  is  every- 
thing that  comes  from  Mr.  Motley,  but  it  does  not  tell  us 
why  the  war  has  existed.  Why  is  it  that  eight  millions  of 
people  have  desired  to  separate  themselves  from  a  rich  and 
mighty  empire — from  an  empire  which  was  apparently  on 
its  road  to  unprecedented  success,  and  which  had  already 
achieved  wealth,  consideration,  power,  and  internal  well- 
being  ? 

One  would  be  glad  to  imagine,  from  the  essays  of  Mr. 
Everett  and  of  Mr.  Motley,  that  slavery  has  had  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  must  acknowledge  it  to  be  my 
opinion  that  slavery  in  its  various  bearings  has  been  the 
single  and  necessary  cause  of  the  war ;  that  slavery  being 
there  in  the  South,  this  w^ar  was  only  to  be  avoided  by  a 
voluntary  division — secession  voluntary  both  on  the  part  of 
North  and  South;  that  in  the  event  of  such  voluntary  seces- 
sion being  not  asked  for,  or  if  asked  for  not  conceded,  revo- 
lution and  civil  war  became  necessary  —  were  not  to  be 
avoided  by  any  wisdom  or  care  on  the  part  of  the  North. 

The  arguments  used  by  both  the  gentlemen  I  have  named 
prove  very  clearly  that  South  Carolina  and  her  sister  States 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  AVAR. 


47 


had  no  right  to  secede  under  the  Constitution;  that  is  to 
say,  that  it  was  not  open  to  them  peaceably  to  take  their 
departure,  and  to  refuse  further  allegiance  to  the  President 
and  Congress  without  a  breach  of  the  laws  by  which  they 
were  bound.  For  a  certain  term  of  years,  namely,  from 
1781  to  1787,  the  different  States  endeavored  to  make  their 
way  in  the  world  simply  leagued  together  by  certain  articles 
of  confederation.  It  was  declared  that  each  State  retained 
its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and  independence;  and  that  the 
said  States  then  entered  severally  into  a  firm  league  of 
friendship  with  each  other  for  their  common  defense.  There 
was  no  President,  no  Congress  taking  the  place  of  our  Par- 
liament, but  simply  a  congress  of  delegates  or  ambassadors, 
two  or  three  from  each  State,  who  were  to  act  in  accordance 
with  the  policy  of  their  own  individual  States.  It  is  well 
that  this  should  be  thoroughly  understood,  not  as  bearing  on 
the  question  of  the  present  war,  but  as  showing  that  a  loose 
confederation,  not  subversive  of  the  separate  independence 
of  the  States,  and  capable  of  being  partially  dissolved  at 
the  will  of  each  separate  State,  was  tried,  and  was  found  to 
fail.  South  Carolina  took  upon  herself  to  act  as  she  might 
have  acted  had  that  confederation  remained  in  force ;  but 
that  confederation  was  an  acknowledged  failure.  National 
greatness  could  not  be  achieved  under  it,  and  individual 
enterprise  could  not  succeed  under  it.  Then  in  lieu  of  that, 
by  the  united  consent  of  the  thirteen  States,  the  present 
Constitution  was  drawn  up  and  sanctioned,  and  to  that  every 
State  bound  itself  in  allegiance.  In  that  Constitution  no 
power  of  secession  is  either  named  or  presumed  to  exist. 
The  individual  sovereignty  of  the  States  had,  in  the  first 
instance,  been  thought  desirable.  The  young  republicans 
hankered  after  the  separate  power  and  separate  name  which 
each  might  then  have  achieved;  but  that  dream  had  been 
found  vain — and  therefore  the  States,  at  the  cost  of  some 
fond  wishes,  agreed  to  seek  together  for  national  power 
rather  than  run  the  risks  entailed  upon  separate  existence. 
Those  of  my  readers  who  may  be  desirous  of  examining  this 
matter  for  themselves,  are  referred  to  the  Articles  of  Con- 
federation and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The 
latter  alone  is  clear  enough  on  the  subject,  but  is  strength- 
ened by  the  former  in  proving  that  under  the  latter  no 
State  could  possess  the  legal  power  of  seceding. 

But  they  who  created  the  Constitution,  who  framed  the 


48 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


clauses,  and  gave  to  this  terribly  important  work  what 
wisdom  they  possessed,  did  not  presume  to  think  that  it 
could  be  finaL  The  mode  of  altering  the  Constitution  is 
arranged  in  the  Constitution.  Such  alterations  must  be  pro- 
posed either  by  two-thirds  of  both  the  houses  of  the  general 
Congress,  or  by  the  legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  the  States ; 
and  must,  when  so  proposed,  be  ratified  by  the  legislatures 
of  three-fourths  of  the  States,  (Article  V.)  There  can,  I 
think,  be  no  doubt  that  any  alteration  so  carried  would 
be  valid  —  even  though  that  alteration  should  go  to  the 
extent  of  excluding  one  or  any  number  of  States  from  the 
Union.  Any  division  so  made  would  be  made  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Constitution. 

South  Carolina  and  the  Southern  States  no  doubt  felt 
that  they  would  not  succeed  in  obtaining  secession  in  this 
way,  and  therefore  they  sought  to  obtain  the  separation 
which  they  wanted  by  revolution — by  revolution  and  rebel- 
lion, as  Naples  has  lately  succeeded  in  her  attempt  to  change 
her  political  status ;  as  Hungary  is  looking  to  do  ;  as  Poland 
has  been  seeking  to  do  any  time  since  her  subjection;  as  the 
revolted  colonies  of  Great  Britain  succeeded  in  doing  in 
1776,  whereby  they  created  this  great  nation  which  is  now 
undergoing  all  the  sorrows  of  a  civil  war.  The  name  of 
secession  claimed  by  the  South  for  this  movement  is  a  mis- 
nomer. If  any  part  of  a  nationality  or  empire  ever  rebelled 
against  the  government  established  on  behalf  of  the  whole, 
South  Carolina  so  rebelled  when,  on  the  20th  of  November, 
1860,  she  put  forth  her  ordinance  of  so-called  secession; 
and  the  other  Southern  States  joined  in  that  rebellion  when 
they  followed  her  lead.  As  to  that  fact,  there  cannot,  I 
think,  much  longer  be  any  doubt  in  any  mind.  I  insist  on 
this  especially,  repeating  perhaps  unnecessarily  opinions 
expressed  in  my  first  volume,  because  I  still  see  it  stated  by 
English  writers  that  the  secession  ordinance  of  South  Caro- 
lina should  have  been  accepted  as  a  political  act  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  It  seems  to  me  that  no 
government  can  in  this  way  accept  an  act  of  rebellion  with- 
out declaring  its  own  functions  to  be  beyond  its  own  power. 

But  what  if  such  rebellion  be  justifiable,  or  even  reason- 
able ?  what  if  the  rebels  have  cause  for  their  rebellion  ?  For 
no  one  will  now  deny  that  rebellion  may  be  both  reasonable 
and  justifiable ;  or  that  every  subject  in  the  land  may  be 
bound  in  duty  to  rebel.    In  such  case  the  government  will 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR. 


49 


be  held  to  have  brought  about  its  own  punishment  by  its 
own  fault.  But  as  government  is  a  wide  affair,  spreading 
itself  gradually,  and  growing  in  virtue  or  in  vice  from 
small  beginnings — from  seeds  slow  to  produce  their  fruits — 
it  is  much  easier  to  discern  the  incidence  of  the  punishment 
than  the  perpetration  of  the  fault.  Government  goes  astray 
by  degrees,  or  sins  by  the  absence  of  that  wisdom  which 
should  teach  rulers  how  to  make  progress  as  progress  is 
made  by  those  whom  they  rule.  The  fault  may  be  abso- 
lutely negative  and  have  spread  itself  over  centuries ;  may 
be,  and  generally  has  been,  attributable  to  dull,  good  men ; 
but  not  the  less  does  the  punishment  come  at  a  blow.  The 
rebellion  exists  and  cannot  be  put  down — will  put  down  all 
that  opposes  it ;  but  the  government  is  not  the  less  bound 
to  make  its  fight.  That  is  the  punishment  that  comes  on 
governing  men  or  on  governing  a  people  that  govern  not 
well  or  not  wisely. 

As  Mr.  Motley  says  in  the  paper  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
"Xo  man,  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  with  Anglo-Saxon 
blood  in  his  veins,  will  dispute  the  right  of  a  people,  or  of 
any  portion  of  a  people,  to  rise  against  oppression,  to  de- 
mand redress  of  grievances,  and  in  case  of  denial  of  justice 
to  take  up  arms  to  vindicate  the  sacred  principle  of  liberty. 
Few  Englishmen  or  Americans  will  deny  that  the  source  of 
government  is  the  consent  of  the  governed,  or  that  every 
nation  has  the  right  to  govern  itself  according  to  its  will. 
When  the  silent  consent  is  changed  to  fierce  remonstrance, 
revolution  is  impending.  The  right  of  revolution  is  indis- 
putable. It  is  written  on  the  whole  record  of  our  race. 
I3ritish  and  American  history  is  made  up  of  rebellion  and 
revolution.  Hampden,  Pym,  and  Oliver  Cromwell ;  Wash- 
ington, Adams,  and  Jefferson,  all  were  rebels."  Then  comes 
the  question  whether  South  Carolina  and  the  Gulf  States 
had  so  sufi'ered  as  to  make  rebellion  on  their  behalf  justifi- 
able or  reasonable ;  or  if  not,  what  cause  had  been  strong 
enough  to  produce  in  them  so  strong  a  desire  for  secession, 
a  desire  which  has  existed  for  fully  half  the  term  through 
which  the  United  States  has  existed  as  a  nation,  and  so  firm 
a  resolve  to  rush  into  rebellion  with  the  object  of  accom- 
plishing that  which  they  deemed  not  to  be  accomplished  on 
other  terms  ? 

It  must,  I  think,  be  conceded  that  the  Gulf  States  have 
VOL.  ir. — 5 


50 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


not  suffered  at  all  by  their  connection  with  the  Northern 
States ;  that  in  lieu  of  any  such  suffering,  they  owe  all 
their  national  greatness  to  the  Northern  States;  that  they 
have  been  lifted  up,  by  the  commercial  energy  of  the  Atlan- 
tic States  and  by  the  agricultural  prosperity  of  the  Western 
States,  to  a  degree  of  national  consideration  and  respect 
through  the  world  at  large  which  never  could  have  belonged 
to  them  standing  alone.  I  will  not  trouble  my  readers  with 
statistics  which  few  would  care  to  follow ;  but  let  any  man 
of  ordinary  every-day  knowledge  turn  over  in  his  own  mind 
his  present  existing  ideas  of  the  wealth  and  commerce  of  New 
York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago,  Pittsburg,  and  Cincin- 
nati, and  compare  them  with  his  ideas  as  to  New  Orleans, 
Charleston,  Savannah, Mobile,  Richmond,  and  Memphis.  I  do 
not  name  such  towns  as  Baltimore  and  St.  Louis,  which  stand 
in  slave  States,  but  which  have  raised  themselves  to  pros- 
perity by  Northern  habits.  If  this  be  not  sufficient,  let  him 
refer  to  population  tables  and  tables  of  shipping  and  ton- 
nage. And  of  those  Southern  towns  which  I  have  named 
the  commercial  wealth  is  of  Northern  creation.  The  success 
of  New  Orleans  as  a  city  can  be  no  more  attributed  to 
Louisianians  than  can  that  of  the  Havana  to  the  men  of 
Cuba,  or  of  Calcutta  to  the  natives  of  India.  It  has  been 
a  repetition  of  the  old  story,  told  over  and  over  again 
through  every  century  since  commerce  has  flourished  in  the 
world ;  the  tropics  can  produce,  but  the  men  from  the  North 
shall  sow  and  reap,  and  garner  and  enjoy.  As  the  Crea- 
tor's work  has  progressed,  this  privilege  has  extended  itself 
to  regions  farther  removed  and  still  farther  from  southern 
influences.  If  we  look  to  Europe,  we  see  that  this  has  been 
so  in  Greece,  Italy,  Spain,  France,  and  the  ' Netherlands ; 
in  England  and  Scotland;  in  Prussia  and  in  Russia;  and 
the  Western  World  shows  us  the  same  story.  Where  is 
now  the  glory  of  the  Antilles  ?  where  the  riches  of  Mexico 
and  the  power  of  Peru  ?  They  still  produce  sugar,  guano, 
gold,  cotton,  coffee — almost  whatever  we  may  ask  them — 
and  will  continue  to  do  so  while  held  to  labor  under  suffi- 
cient restraint;  but  where  are  their  men,  where  are  their 
books,  where  is  their  learning,  their  art,  their  enterprise  ?  I 
say  it  with  sad  regret  at  the  decadence  of  so  vast  a  popula- 
tion; but  I  do  say  that  the  Southern  States  of  America 
have  not  been  able  to  keep  pace  with  their  Northern  breth- 
ren ;  that  they  have  fallen  behind  in  the  race,  and,  feeling 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR. 


61 


that  the  struggle  is  too  much  for  them,  have  therefore  re- 
solved to  part. 

The  reasons  put  forward  by  the  South  for  secession  have 
been  trifling  almost  beyond  conception.  Northern  tariffs 
have  been  the  first,  and  perhaps  foremost.  Then  there  has 
been  a  plea  that  the  national  exchequer  has  paid  certain 
bounties  to  New  England  fishermen,  of  which  the  South 
has  paid  its  share,  getting  no  part  of  such  bounty  in  return. 
There  is  also  a  complaint  as  to  the  navigation  laws — mean- 
ing, I  believe,  that  the  laws  of  the  States  increase  the  cost 
of  coast  traffic  by  forbidding  foreign  vessels  to  engage  in 
the  trade,  thereby  increasing  also  the  price  of  goods  and 
confining  the  benefit  to  the  North,  which  carries  on  the 
coasting  trade  of  the  country,  and  doing  only  injury  to  the 
South,  which  has  none  of  it.  Then  last,  but  not  least, 
comes  that  grievance  as  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  law 
of  the  land  as  a  whole — the  law  of  the  nation — requires  the 
rendition  from  free  States  of  all  fugitive  slaves.  But  the 
free  States  will  not  obey  this  law.  They  even  pass  State 
laws  in  opposition  to  it.  "  Catch  your  own  slaves,"  they 
say,  "and  we  will  not  hinder  you;  at  any  rate  we  will  not 
hinder  you  officially.  Of  non-official  hinderance  you  must 
take  your  chance.  But  we  absolutely  decline  to  employ  our 
officers  to  catch  your  slaves."  That  list  comprises,  as  I 
take  it,  the  amount  of  Southern  official  grievances.  Southern 
people  will  tell  you  privately  of  others.  They  will  say  that 
they  cannot  sleep  happy  in  their  beds,  fearing  lest  insurrec- 
tion should  be  roused  among  their  slaves.  They  will  tell 
you  of  domestic  comfort  invaded  by  Northern  falsehood. 
They  will  explain  to  you  how  false  has  been  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe.  Ladies  will  fill  your  ears  and  your  hearts  too  with 
tales  of  the  daily  efforts  they  make  for  the  comfort  of  their 
"people,"  and  of  the  ruin  to  those  efforts  which  arises  from 
the  malice  of  the  abolitionists.  To  all  this  you  make  some 
answer  with  your  tongue  that  is  hardly  true — for  in  such  a 
matter  courtesy  forbids  the  plain  truth.  But  your  heart 
within  answers  truly,  "Madam,  dear  madam,  your  sorrow 
is  great;  but  that  sorrow  is  the  necessary  result  of  your 
position." 

As  to  those  official  reasons,  in  what  fewest  words  I  can 
use  I  will  endeavor  to  show  that  they  come  to  nothing. 
The  tariff — and  a  monstrous  tariff  it  then  was — was  the 
ground  put  forward  by  South  Carolina  for  secession  when 


52 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


General  Jackson  was  President  and  Mr.  Calhoun  was  the 
hero  of  the  South.  Calhoun  bound  himself  and  his  State 
to  take  certain  steps  toward  secession  at  a  certain  day  if 
that  tarilf  were  not  abolished.  The  tariff  was  so  absurd 
that  Jackson  and  his  government  were  forced  to  abandon  it 
— would  have  abandoned  it  without  any  threat  from  Cal- 
houn ;  but  under  that  threat  it  was  necessary  that  Calhoun 
should  be  defied.  General  Jackson  proposed  a  compromise 
tariff,  which  was  odious  to  Calhoun — not  on  its  own  behalf, 
for  it  yielded  nearly  all  that  was  asked,  but  as  being  sub- 
versive of  his  desire  for  secession.  The  President,  however, 
not  only  insisted  on  his  compromise,  but  declared  his  pur- 
pose of  preventing  its  passage  into  law  unless  Calhoun  him- 
self, as  Senator,  would  vote  for  it.  And  he  also  declared 
his  purpose — not,  we  may  presurue,  officially — of  hanging 
Calhoun,  if  he  took  that  step  toward  secession  which  he  had 
bound  himself  to  take  in  the  event  of  the  tariff  not  being 
repealed.  As  a  result  of  all  this  Calhoun  voted  for  the 
compromise,  and  secession  for  the  time  was  beaten  down. 
That  was  in  1832,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  commence- 
ment of  the  secession  movement.  The  tariff  was  then  a  con- 
venient reason,  a  ground  to  be  assigned  with  a  color  of  justice 
because  it  was  a  tariff  admitted  to  be  bad.  But  the  tariff 
has  been  modified  again  and  again  since  that,  and  the  tariff 
existing  when  South  Carolina  seceded  in  1860  had  been 
carried  by  votes  from  South  Carolina.  The  absurd  Morrill 
tariff  could  not  have  caused  secession,  for  it  was  passed, 
without  a  struggle,  in  the  collapse  of  Congress  occasioned 
by  secession. 

The  bounty  to  fishermen  was  given  to  create  sailors,  so 
that  a  marine  might  be  provided  for  the  nation.  I  need 
hardly  show  that  the  national  benefit  would  accrue  to  the 
whole  nation  for  whose  protection  such  sailors  were  needed. 
Such  a  system  of  bounties  may  be  bad ;  but  if  so,  it  was 
bad  for  the  whole  nation.  It  did  not  affect  South  Carolina 
otherwise  than  it  affected  Illinois,  Pennsylvania,  or  even 
New  York. 

The  navigation  laws  may  also  have  been  bad.  According 
to  my  thinking  such  protective  laws  are  bad ;  but  they  cre- 
ated no  special  hardship  on  the  South.  By  any  such  a 
theory  of  complaint  all  sectioDS  of  all  nations  have  ground 
of  complaint  against  any  other  section  which  receives  spe- 
cial protection  under  any  law.    The  drinkers  of  beer  in 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR. 


53 


England  should  secede  because  they  pay  a  tax,  whereas  the 
consumers  of  paper  pay  none.  The  navigation  laws  of  the 
States  are  no  doubt  injurious  to  the  mercantile  interests  of 
the  States.  I  at  least  have  no  doubt  on  the  subject.  But 
no  one  will  think  that  secession  is  justified  by  the  existence 
of  a  law  of  questionable  expediency.  Bad  laws  will  go  by 
the  board  if  properly  handled  by  those  whom  they  pinch, 
as  the  navigation  laws  went  by  the  board  with  us  in 
England. 

As  to  that  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  it  should  be  explained 
that  the  grievance  has  not  arisen  from  the  loss  of  slaves. 
I  have  heard  it  stated  that  South  Carolina,  up  to  the  time 
of  the  secession,  had  never  lost  a  slave  in  this  way — that  is, 
by  Northern  opposition  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law;  and 
that  the  total  number  of  slaves  escaping  successfully  into 
the  Northern  States,  and  there  remaining  through  the  non- 
operation  of  this  law,  did  not  amount  to  five  in  the  year. 
It  has  not  been  a  question  of  property,  but  of  feeling.  It 
has  been  a  political  point ;  and  the  South  has  conceived — 
and  probably  conceived  truly — that  this  resolution  on  the 
part  of  Northern  States  to  defy  the  law  with  reference  to 
slaves,  even  though  in  itself  it  might  not  be  immediately 
injurious  to  Southern  property,  was  an  insertion  of  the  nar- 
row end  of  the  wedge.  It  was  an  action  taken  against 
slavery — an  action  taken  by  men  of  the  North  against  their 
fellow-countrymen  in  the  South,  Under  such  circumstances, 
the  sooner  such  countrymen  should  cease  to  be  their  fellows 
the  better  it  would  be  for  them.  That,  I  take  it,  was  the 
argument  of  the  South,  or  at  any  rate  that  was  its  feeling. 

I  have  said  that  the  reasons  given  for  secession  have  been 
trifling,  and  among  them  have  so  estimated  this  matter  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  I  mean  to  assert  that  the  ground 
actually  put  forward  is  trifling — the  loss,  namely,  of  slaves 
to  which  the  South  has  been  subjected.  But  the  true  rea- 
son pointed  at  in  this  —  the  conviction,  namely,  that  the 
North  would  not  leave  slavery  alone,  and  would  not  allow 
it  to  remain  as  a  settled  institution — was  by  no  means  tri- 
fling. It  has  been  this  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  South 
that  the  North  would  not  live  in  amity  with  slavery — would 
continue  to  fight  it  under  this  banner  or  under  that,  would 
still  condemn  it  as  disgraceful  to  men  and  rebuke  it  as  im- 
pious before  God — which  has  produced  rebellion  and  civil 
war,  and  will  ultimately  produce  that  division  for  which  the 
VOL.  II. — 5* 


54 


NOHTII  AMERICA. 


South  is  fighting  and  against  which  the  North  is  fighting, 
and  which,  when  accomplished,  will  give  the  North  new 
wings,  and  will  leave  the  South  without  pohtieal  greatness 
or  commercial  success. 

Under  such  circumstances  I  cannot  think  that  rebellion 
on  the  part  of  the  South  was  justified  by  wrongs  endured, 
or  made  reasonable  by  the  prospect  of  wrongs  to  be  inflicted. 
It  is  disagreeable,  that  having  to  live  with  a  wife  who  is 
always  rebuking  one  for  some  special  fault ;  but  the  outside 
world  will  not  grant  a  divorce  on  that  account,  especially 
if  the  outside  world  is  well  aware  that  the  fault  so  rebuked 
is  of  daily  occurrence.  "  If  you  do  not  choose  to  be  called 
a  drunkard  by  your  wife,"  the  outside  world  will  say,  "  it 
will  be  well  that  you  should  cease  to  drink."  Ah  !  but  that 
habit  of  drinking,  when  once  acquired,  cannot  easily  be  laid 
aside.  The  brain  will  not  work;  the  organs  of  the  body 
will  not  perform  their  functions ;  the  blood  will  not  run. 
The  drunkard  must  drink  till  he  dies.  All  that  may  be  a 
good  ground  for  divorce,  the  outside  world  will  say ;  but 
the  plea  should  be  put  in  by  the  sober  wife,  not  by  the  in- 
temperate husband.  But  what  if  the  husband  takes  himself 
off  without  any  divorce,  and  takes  with  him  also  his  wife's 
property,  her  earnings,  that  on  which  he  has  lived  and  his 
children  ?  It  may  be  a  good  bargain  still  for  her,  the  out- 
side world  will  say ;  but  she,  if  she  be  a  woman  of  spirit, 
will  not  willingly  put  up  with  such  wrongs.  The  South  has 
been  the  husband  drunk  with  slavery,  and  the  North  has 
been  the  ill-used  wife. 

Rebellion,  as  I  have  said,  is  often  justifiable ;  but  it  is,  I 
think,  never  justifiable  on  the  part  of  a  paid  servant  of  that 
government  against  which  it  is  raised.  We  must,  at  any 
rate,  feel  that  this  is  true  of  men  in  high  places — as  regards 
those  men  to  whom  by  reason  of  their  offices  it  should  spe- 
cially belong  to  put  down  rebellion.  Had  Washington  been 
the  governor  of  Virginia,  had  Cromwell  been  a  minister  of 
Charles,  had  Garibaldi  held  a  marshal's  baton  under  the 
Emperor  of  Austria  or  the  King  of  Naples,  those  men 
would  have  been  traitors  as  well  as  rebels.  Treason  and 
rebellion  may  be  made  one  under  the  law,  but  the  mind  will 
always  draw  the  distinction.  I,  if  I  rebel  against  the 
Crown,  am  not  on  that  account  necessarily  a  traitor.  A 
betrayal  of  trust  is,  I  take  it,  necessary  to  treason.  I  am 
not  aware  that  Jefferson  Davis  is  a  traitor ;  but  that  Bu- 


THE  CAUSES  OP  THE  WAR. 


65 


chanan  was  a  traitor  admits,  I  tbiiilv,  of  no  dou])t.  Under 
liira,  and  with  his  connivance,  the  rebellion  was  allowed  to 
make  its  way.  Under  him,  and  by  his  officers,  arms  and 
ships  and  men  and  money  were  sent  away  from  those  points 
at  which  it  was  known  that  they  would  be  needed,  if  it  were 
intended  to  put  down  the  coming  rebellion,  and  to  those 
points  at  which  it  was  known  that  they  would  be  needed,  if  it 
were  intended  to  foster  the  coming  rebellion.  But  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan had  no  eager  feeling  in  favor  of  secession.  He  was 
not  of  that  stuff  of  which  are  made  Davis,  and  Toombs, 
and  Slidell.  But  treason  was  easier  to  him  than  loyalty. 
Remonstrance  was  made  to  him,  pointing  out  the  misfor- 
tunes which  his  action,  or  want  of  action,  would  bring  upon 
the  country.  "  Not  in  my  time,"  he  answered.  "  It  will 
not  be  in  my  time."  So  that  he  might  escape  unscathed 
out  of  the  fire,  this  chief  ruler  of  a  nation  of  thirty  millions 
of  men  was  content  to  allow  treason  and  rebellion  to  work 
their  way  I  I  venture  to  say  so  much  here  as  showing  how 
impossible  it  was  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  government,  on  its 
coming  into  office,  should  have  given  to  the  South,  not  what 
the  South  had  asked,  for  the  South  had  not  asked,  but  what 
the  South  had  taken,  what  the  South  had  tried  to  filch. 
Had  the  South  waited  for  secession  till  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
been  in  his  chair,  I  could  understand  that  England  should 
sympathize  with  her.  For  myself  I  cannot  agree  to  that 
scuttling  of  the  ship  by  the  captain  on  the  day  which  was 
to  see  the  transfer  of  his  command  to  another  officer. 

The  Southern  States  were  driven  into  rebellion  by  no 
wrongs  inflicted  on  them ;  but  their  desire  for  secession  is 
not  on  that  account  matter  for  astonishment.  It  would 
have  been  surprising  had  they  not  desired  secession.  Seces- 
sion of  one  kind,  a  very  practical  secession,  had  already 
been  forced  upon  them  by  circumstances.  They  had  become 
a  separate  people,  dissevered  from  the  North  by  habits, 
morals,  institutions,  pursuits,  and  every  conceivable  differ- 
ence in  their  modes  of  thought  and  action.  They  still  spoke 
the  same  language,  as  do  Austria  and  Prussia ;  but  beyond 
that  tie  of  language  they  had  no  bond  but  that  of  a  meager 
political  union  in  their  Congress  at  Washington.  Slavery, 
as  it  had  been  expelled  from  the  North,  and  as  it  had  come 
to  be  welcomed  in  the  South,  had  raised  such  a  wall  of  dif- 
ference that  true  political  union  was  out  of  the  question.  It 
would  be . juster,  perhaps,  to  say  that  those  physical  charac- 


66 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


teristics  of  the  South  which  had  induced  this  welcoming  of 

slavery,  and  those  other  characteristics  of  the  North  which 
had  induced  its  expulsion,  were  the  true  causes  of  the  differ- 
ence. For  years  and  years  this  has  been  felt  by  both,  and 
the  fight  has  been  going  on.  It  has  been  continued  for 
thirty  years,  and  almost  always  to  the  detriment  of  the 
South.  In  1845  Florida  and  Texas  were  admitted  into 
the  Union  as  slave  States.  I  think  that  no  State  had  then 
been  admitted,  as  a  free  State,  since  Michigan,  in  1836. 
In  1846  Iowa  was  admitted  as  a  free  State,  and  from  that 
day  to  this  Wisconsin,  California,  Minnesota,  Oregon,  and 
Kansas  have  been  brought  into  the  Union ;  all  as  free 
States.  The  annexation  of  another  slave  State  to  the  ex- 
isting Union  had  become,  I  imagine,  impossible — unless 
such  object  were  gained  by  the  admission  of  Texas.  We 
all  remember  that  fight  about  Kansas,  and  what  sort  of  a 
fight  it  was  !  Kansas  lies  alongside  of  Missouri,  a  slave 
State,  and  is  contiguous  to  no  other  State.  If  the  free- 
soil  party  could,  in  the  days  of  Pierce  and  Buchanan,  carry 
the  day  in  Kansas,  it  is  not  likely  that  they  would  be  beaten 
on  any  new  ground  under  such  a  President  as  Lincoln.  We 
have  all  heard  in  Europe  how  Southern  men  have  ruled  in 
the  White  House,  nearly  from  the  days  of  Washington  down- 
ward ;  or  if  not  Southern  men.  Northern  men,  such  as  Pierce 
and  Buchanan,  with  Southern  politics ;  and  therefore  we 
have  been  taught  to  think  that  the  South  has  been  politically 
the  winning  party.  They  have,  in  truth,  been  the  losing 
party  as  regards  national  power.  But  what  they  have  so 
lost  they  have  hitherto  recovered  by  political  address  and 
individual  statecraft.  The  leading  men  of  the  South  have 
seen  their  position,  and  have  gone  to  their  work  with  the 
exercise  of  all  their  energies.  They  organized  the  Democratic 
party  so  as  to  include  the  leaders  among  the  Northern  pol- 
iticians. They  never  begrudged  to  these  assistants  a  full 
share  of  the  good  things  of  official  life.  They  have  been 
aided  by  the  fanatical  abolitionism  of  the  North  by  which 
the  Republican  party  has  been  divided  into  two  sections. 
It  has  been  fashionable  to  be  a  Democrat,  that  is,  to  hold 
Southern  politics,  and  unfashionable  to  be  a  Republican,  or 
to  hold  an ti- Southern  politics.  In  that  way  the  South  has 
lived  and  struggled  on  against  the  growing  will  of  the  pop- 
ulation ;  but  at  last  that  will  became  too  strong,  and  when 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR. 


5T 


Mr.  Lincoln  was'  elected,  the  South  knew  that  its  day  was 
over. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  South  should  have  desired 
secession.  It  is  not  surprising  that  it  should  have  prepared 
for  it.  Since  the  days  of  Mr.  Calhoun  its  leaders  have  al- 
ways understood  its  position  with  a  fair  amount  of  political 
accuracy.  Its  only  chance  of  political  life  lay  in  prolonged 
ascendency  at  Washington.  The  swelling  crowds  of  Ger- 
mans, by  whom  the  Western  States  were  being  filled,  en- 
listed themselves  to  a  man  in  the  ranks  of  abolition.  What 
was  the  acquisition  of  Texas  against  such  hosts  as  these  ? 
An  evil  day  was  coming  on  the  Southern  politicians,  and  it 
behooved  them  to  be  prepared.  As  a  separate  nation — a 
nation  trusting  to  cotton,  having  in  their  hands,  as  they 
imagined,  a  monopoly  of  the  staple  of  English  manufacture, 
with  a  tariff  of  their  own,  and  those  rabid  curses  on  the 
source  of  all  their  wealth  no  longer  ringing  in  their  ears, 
what  might  they  not  do  as  a  separate  nation?  But.  as  a 
part  of  the  Union,  they  were  too  weak  to  hold  their' own  if 
once  their  political  finesse  should  fail  them.  That  day  came 
upon  them,  not  unexpected,  in  1860,  and  therefore  they  cut 
the  cable. 

And  all  this  has  come  from  slavery.  It  is  hard  enough, 
for  how  could  the  South  have  escaped  slavery  ?  How,  at 
least,  could  the  South  have  escaped  slavery  any  time  during 
these  last  thirty  years  ?  And  is  it,  moreover,  so  certain  that 
slavery  is  an  unmitigated  evil,  opposed  to  God's  will,  and 
producing  all  the  sorrows  which  have  ever  been  produced 
by  tyranny  and  wrong  ?  It  is  here,  after  all,  that  one  comes 
to  the  difficult  question.  Here  is  the  knot  which  the  fingers 
of  men  cannot  open,  and  which  admits  of  no  sudden  cutting 
with  the  knife.  I  have  likened  the  slaveholding  States  to 
the  drunken  husband,  and  in  so  doing  have  pronounced 
judgment  against  them.  As  regards  the  state  of  the  drunken 
man,  his  unfitness  for  partnership  with  any  decent,  diligent, 
well-to-do  wife,  his  ruined  condition,  and  shattered  pros- 
pects, the  simile,  I  think,  holds  good.  But  I  refrain  from 
saying  that  as  the  fault  was  originally  with  the  drunkard  in 
that  he  became  such,  so  also  has  the  fault  been  with  the 
slave  States.  At  any  rate  I  refrain  from  so  saying  here,  on 
this  page.  That  the  position  of  a  slaveowner  is  terribly 
prejudicial,  not  to  the  slave,  of  whom  I  do  not  here  speak, 
but  to  the  owner  j  of  so  much  at  any  rate  I  feel  assured. 


58 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


That  tlie  position  is  therefore  criminal  and  damnable,  I  am 

not  now  disposed  to  take  upon  myself  to  assert. 

The  question  of  slavery  in  America  cannot  be  handled 
fully  and  fairly  by  any  one  who  is  afraid  to  go  back  upon 
the  subject,  and  take  its  whole  history  since  one  man  first 
claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  forcing  labor  from  another 
man.  I  certainly  am  afraid  of  any  such  task  ;  but  I  believe 
that  there  has  been  no  period  yet,  since  the  world's  work 
began,  when  such  a  practice  has  not  prevailed  in  a  large 
portion,  probably  in  the  largest  portion,  of  the  world's  work 
fields.  As  civilization  has  made  its  progress,  it  has  been 
the  duty  and  delight,  as  it  has  also  been  the  interest  of  the 
men  at  the  top  of  affairs,  not  to  lighten  the  work  of  the  men 
below,  but  so  to  teach  them  that  they  should  recognize  the 
necessity  of  working  without  coercion.  Emancipation  of 
serfs  and  thrals,  of  bondsmen  and  slaves,  has  always  meant 
this — that  men  having  been  so  taught,  should  then  work 
without  coercion. 

In  talking  or  writing  of  slaves,  we  always  now  think  of 
the  negro  slave.  Of  us  Englishmen  it  must  at  any  rate  be 
acknowledged  that  we  have  done  what  in  us  lay  to  induce 
him  to  recognize  this  necessity  for  labor.  At  any  rate  we 
acted  on  the  presumption  that  he  would  do  so,  and  gave 
him  his  liberty  throughout  all  our  lands  at  a  cost  which  has 
never  yet  been  reckoned  up  in  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence. 
The  cost  never  can  be  reckoned  up,  nor  can  the  gain  which 
we  achieved  in  purging  ourselves  from  the  degradation  and 
demoralization  of  such  employment.  We  come  into  court 
with  clean  hands,  having  done  all  that  lay  with  us  to  do  to 
put  down  slavery  both  at  home  and  abroad.  But  when  we 
enfranchised  the  negroes,  we  did  so  with  the  intention,  at 
least,  that  they  should  work  as  free  men.  Their  share  of  the 
bargain  in  that  respect  they  have  declined  to  keep,  wherever 
starvation  has  not  been  the  result  of  such  resolve  on  their 
part ;  and  from  the  date  of  our  emancipation,  seeing  the 
position  which  the  negroes  now  hold  with  us,  the  Southern 
States  of  America  have  learned  to  regard  slavery  as  a 
permanent  institution,  and  have  taught  themselves  to  re- 
gard it  as  a  blessing,  and  not  as  a  curse. 

Negroes  were  first  taken  over  to  America  because  the 
white  man  could  not  work  under  the  tropical  heats,  and 
because  the  native  Indian  would  not  work.  The  latter 
people  has  been,  or  soon  will  be,  exterminated — polished 


SLAVERY. 


59 


off  the  face  of  creation,  as  the  Americans  say — which  fate 
must,  I  should  say,  in  the  long  run  attend  all  non-working 
people.  As  the  soil  of  the  world  is  required  for  increasing 
population,  the  non-working  people  must  go.  And  so  the 
Indians  have  gone.  The  negroes,  under  compulsion,  did 
work,  and  work  well ;  and  under  their  hands  vast  regions 
of  the  western  tropics  became  fertile  gardens.  The  fact 
that  they  were  carried  up  into  northern  regions  which  from 
their  nature  did  not  require  such  aid,  that  slavery  prevailed 
in  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  does  not  militate  against 
my  argument.  The  exact  limits  of  any  great  movement 
will  not  be  bounded  by  its  purpose.  The  heated  wax  which 
you  drop  on  your  letter  spreads  itself  beyond  the  necessities 
of  your  seal.  That  these  negroes  would  not  have  come  to 
the  Western  World  without  compulsion,  or  having  come, 
would  not  have  worked  without  compulsion,  is,  I  imagine, 
acknowledged  by  all.  That  they  have  multiplied  in  the 
Western  World  and  have  there  become  a  race  happier,  at 
any  rate  in  all  the  circumstances  of  their  life,  than  their 
still  untamed  kinsmen  in  Africa,  must  also  be  acknowledged. 
Who,  then,  can  dare  to  wish  that  all  that  has  been  done  by 
the  negro  immigration  should  have  remained  undone  ? 

The  name  of  slave  is  odious  to  me.  If  I  know  myself  I 
would  not  own  a  negro  though  he  could  sweat  gold  on  my 
behoof.  I  glory  in  that  bold  leap  in  the  dark  which  Eng- 
land took  with  regard  to  her  own  West  Indian  slaves.  But 
I  do  not  see  the  less  clearly  the  difficulty  of  that  position 
in  which  the  Southern  States  have  been  placed ;  and  I  will 
not  call  them  wicked,  impious,  and  abominable,  because 
they  now  hold  by  slavery,  as  other  nations  have  held  by  it 
at  some  period  of  their  career.  It  is  their  misfortune  that 
they  must  do  so  now — now,  when  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
world  has  thrown  off  the  system,  spurning  as  base  and  pro- 
fitless all  labor  that  is  not  free.  It  is  their  misfortune,  for 
henceforth  they  must  stand  alone,  with  small  rank  among 
the  nations,  whereas  their  brethren  of  the  North  will  still 
"flame  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky." 

When  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
written — the  merit  of  which  must  probably  be  given  mainly 
to  Madison  and  Hamilton,  Madison  finding  the  French 
democratic  element,  and  Hamilton  the  English  conservative 
element  —  this  question  of  slavery  was  doubtless  a  great 
trouble.    The  word  itself  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Constitu- 


60 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tion.  It  speaks  not  of  a  slave,  but  of  a  "  person  held  to 
service  or  labor."  It  neither  sanctions  nor  forbids  slavery. 
It  assumes  no  power  in  the  matter  of  slavery;  and  under 
it,  at  the  present  moment,  all  Congress  voting  together, 
with  the  full  consent  of  the  legislatures  of  thirty-three 
States,  could  not  constitutionally  put  down  slavery  in  the 
remaining  thirty-fourth  State.  In  fact  the  Constitution 
ignored  the  subject. 

But,  nevertheless,  Washington,  and  Jefferson  from  whom 
Madison  received  his  inspiration,  were  opposed  to  slavery. 
I  do  not  know  that  Washington  ever  took  much  action  in 
the  matter,  but  his  expressed  opinion  is  on  record.  But 
Jefferson  did  so  throughout  his  life.  Before  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  he  endeavored  to  make  slavery  illegal 
in  Virginia.  In  this  he  failed,  but  long  afterward,  when 
the  United  States  was  a  nation,  he  succeeded  in  carrying  a 
law  by  which  the  further  importation  of  slaves  into  any  of 
the  States  was  prohibited  after  a  certain  year — 1820.  When 
this  law  was  passed,  the  framers  of  it  considered  that  the 
gradual  abolition  of  slavery  would  be  secured.  Up  to  that 
period  the  negro  population  in  the  States  had  not  been 
self-maintained.  As  now  in  Cuba,  the  numbers  had  been 
kept  up  by  new  importations,  and  it  was  calculated  that 
the  race,  when  not  recruited  from  Africa,  would  die  out. 
That  this  calculation  was  wrong  we  now  know,  and  the 
breeding-grounds  of  Yirginia  have  been  the  result. 

At  that  time  there  were  no  cotton  fields.  Alabama  and 
Mississippi  were  outlying  territories.  Louisiana  had  been 
recently  purchased,  but  was  not  yet  incorporated  as  a  State. 
Florida  still  belonged  to  Spain,  and  was  all  but  unpopu- 
lated. Of  Texas  no  man  had  yet  heard.  Of  the  slave 
States,  Yirginia,  the  two  Carolinas,  and  Georgia  were 
alone  wedded  to  slavery.  Then  the  matter  might  have 
been  managed.  But  under  the  Constitution  as  it  had  been 
framed,  and  with  the  existing  powers  of  the  separate  States, 
there  was  not  even  then  open  any  way  by  which  slavery 
could  be  abolished  other  than  by  the  separate  action  of  the 
States ;  nor  has  there  been  any  such  way  opened  since. 
With  slavery  these  Southern  States  have  grown  and  be- 
come fertile.  The  planters  have  thriven,  and  the  cotton 
fields  have  spread  themselves.  And  then  came  emancipa- 
tion in  the  British  islands.    Under  such  circumstances  and 


THE  CAUSE  OF  THE  WAR. 


61 


with  sucli  a  lesson,  could  it  be  expected  that  the  Southern 
States  should  learn  to  love  abolition  ? 

It  is  vain  to  say  that  slavery  has  not  caused  secession, 
and  that  slavery  has  not  caused  the  war.  That,  and  that 
only,  has  been  the  real  cause  of  this  conflict,  though  other 
small  collateral  issues  may  now  be  put  forward  to  bear  the 
blame.  Those  other  issues  have  arisen  from  this  question 
of  slavery,  and  are  incidental  to  it  and  a  part  of  it.  Massa- 
chusetts, as  we  all  know,  is  democratic  in  its  tendencies, 
but  South  Carolina  is  essentially  aristocratic.  This  differ- 
ence has  come  of  slavery.  A  slave  country,  which  has  pro- 
gressed far  in  slavery,  must  be  aristocratic  in  its  nature — 
aristocratic  and  patriarchal.  A  large  slaveowner  from 
Georgia  may  call  himself  a  democrat,  may  think  that  he 
reveres  republican  institutions,  and  may  talk  with  American 
horror  of  the  thrones  of  Europe ;  but  he  must  in  his  heart 
be  an  aristocrat.  We,  in  England,  are  apt  to  speak  of  re- 
publican institutions,  and  of  universal  suffrage,  which  is 
perhaps  the  chief  of  them,  as  belonging  equally  to  all  the 
States.  In  South  Carolina  there  is  not  and  has  not  been 
any  such  thing.  The  electors  for  the  President  there  are 
•Qhosen  not  by  the  people,  but  by  the  legislature ;  and  tlie 
rotes  for  the  legislature  are  limited  by  a  high  property 
qualification.  A  high  property  qualification  is  required 
for  a  member  of  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  in  South 
Carolina;  four  hundred  freehold  acres  of  land  and  ten 
negroes  is  one  qualification.  Five  hundred  pounds  clear 
of  debt  is  another  qualification  ;  for,  where  a  sum  of  money 
is  thus  named,  it  is  given  in  English  money.  Russia  and 
England  are  not  more  unlike  in  their  political  and  social 
feelings  than  are  the  real  slave  States  and  the  real  free-soil 
States.  The  gentlemen  from  one  and  from  the  other  side 
of  the  line  have  met  together  on  neutral  ground,  and  have 
discussed  political  matters  without  flying  frequently  at  each 
other's  throats,  while  the  great  question  on  which  they  dif- 
fered was  allowed  to  slumber.  But  the  awakening  has  been 
coming  by  degrees,  and  now  the  South  had  felt  that  it  was 
come.  Old  John  Brown,  who  did  his  best  to  create  a  ser- 
vile insurrection  at  Harper's  Ferry,  has  been  canonized 
through  the  North  and  West,  to  the  amazement  and  horror 
of  the  South.  The  decision  in  the  "Dred  Scott"  case, 
given  by  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
TJnited  States,  has  been  received  with  shouts  of  execration 
VOL.  IT. — 6 


62 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


throuj?h  the  North  and  West.  The  Southern  gentry  have 
been  Uiiele-Tomuied  into  madness.  It  is  no  light  thing  to 
be  told  daily  by  your  fellow-citizens,  by  your  fellow-repre- 
sentatives, by  your  fellow-senators,  that  you  are  guilty  of 
the  one  damning  sin  that  cannot  be  forgiven.  All  this  they 
could  partly  moderate,  partly  rebuke,  and  partly  bear  as 
long  as  political  power  remained  in  their  hands;  but  they 
have  gradually  felt  that  that  was  going,  and  were  prepared 
to  cut  the  rope  and  run  as  soon  as  it  w^as  gone. 

Such,  according  to  my  ideas,  have  been  the  causes  of  the 
war.  But  I  cannot  defend  the  South.  As  long  as  they 
could  be  successful  in  their  schemes  for  holding  the  political 
power  of  the  nation,  they  were  prepared  to  hold  by  the 
nation.  Immediately  those  schemes  failed,  they  were  pre- 
pared to  throw  the  nation  overboard.  In  this  there  has 
undoubtedly  been  treachery  as  well  as  rebellion.  Had  these 
politicians  been  honest  —  though  the  political  growth  of 
Washington  has  hardly  admitted  of  political  honesty — but 
had  these  politicians  been  even  ordinarily  respectable  in 
their  dishonesty,  they  would  have  claimed  secession  openly 
before  Congress,  while  yet  their  own  President  was  at  the 
White  House.  Congress  would  not  have  acceded.  Con- 
gress itself  could  not  have  acceded  under  the  Constitution ; 
but  a  way  would  have  been  found,  had  the  Southern  States 
been  persistent  in  their  demand.  A  way,  indeed,  has  been 
found  ;  but  it  has  lain  through  fire  and  water,  through  blood 
and  ruin,  through  treason  and  theft,  and  the  downfall  of 
national  greatness.  Secession  will,  I  think,  be  accomplished, 
and  the  Southern  Confederation  of  States  will  stand  some- 
thing higher  in  the  world  than  Mexico  and  the  republics  of 
Central  America.  Her  cotton  monopoly  will  have  vanished, 
and  her  wealth  will  have  been  wasted. 

I  think  that  history  will  agree  with  me  in  saying  that  the 
Northern  States  had  no  alternative  but  war.  What  conces- 
sion could  they  make  ?  Could  they  promise  to  hold  their 
peace  about  slavery  ?  And  had  they  so  promised,  would  the 
South  have  believed  them?  They  might  have  conceded 
secession ;  that  is,  they  might  have  given  all  that  would 
have  been  demanded.  But  what  individual  chooses  to  yield 
to  such  demands.  And  if  not  an  individual,  then  what 
people  will  do  so?  But,  in  truth,  they  could  not  have 
yielded  all  that  was  demanded.  Had  secession  been  granted 
to  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  Virginia  would  have  been 


ABOLITION. 


63 


coerced  to  join  those  States  by  the  nature  of  her  property, 
and  with  Virginia  Maryland  would  have  gone,  and  Wash- 
ington, the  capital.  What  may  be  the  future  line  of  division 
between  the  Xorth  and  the  South,  I  will  not  pretend  to  say; 
but  that  line  will  probably  be  dictated  by  the  North.  It 
may  still  be  hoped  that  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Virginia,  and 
Maryland  will  go  with  the  North,  and  be  rescued  from 
slavery.  But  had  secession  been  yielded,  had  the  prestige 
of  success  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  South,  those  States  must 
have  become  Southern. 

While  on  the  subject  of  slavery — for  in  discussing  the 
cause  of  the  war,  slavery  is  the  subject  that  must  be  dis- 
cussed—  I  cannot  forbear  to  say  a  few  words  about  the 
negroes  of  the  North  American  States.  The  Republican 
party  of  the  North  is  divided  into  two  sections,  of  which 
one  may  be  called  abolitionist,  and  the  other  non-abolition- 
ist. Mr.  Lincoln's  government  presumes  itself  to  belong  to 
the  latter,  though  its  tendencies  toward  abolition  are  very 
strong.  The  abolition  party  is  growing  in  strength  daily. 
It  is  but  a  short  time  since  Wendell  Phillips  could  not  lec- 
ture in  Boston  without  a  guard  of  police.  Now,  at  this 
moment  of  my  writing,  he  is  a  popular  hero.  The  very  men 
who,  five  years  since,  were  accustomed  to  make  speeches, 
strong  as  words  could  frame  them,  against  abolition,  are 
now  turning  round,  and,  if  not  preaching  abolition,  are 
patting  the  backs  of  those  who  do  so.  I  heard  one  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  cabinet  declare  old  John  Brown  to  be  a  hero  and 
a  martyr.  All  the  Protestant  Germans  are  abolitionists — • 
and  they  have  become  so  strong  a  political  element  in  the 
country  that  many  now  declare  that  no  future  President  can 
be  elected  without  their  aid.  The  object  is  declared  boldly. 
No  long  political  scheme  is  asked  for,  but  instant  abolition 
is  wanted;  abolition  to  be  declared  while  yet  the  war  is 
raging.  Let  the  slaves  of  all  rebels  be  declared  free ;  and 
all  slaveowners  in  the  seceding  States  are  rebels  ! 

One  cannot  but  ask  what  abolition  means,  and  to  what  it 
would  lead.  Any  ordinance  of  abolition  now  pronounced 
would  not  effect  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  but  might 
probably  effect  a  servile  insurrection.  I  will  not  accuse 
those  who  are  preaching  this  crusade  of  any  desire  for  so 
fearful  a  scourge  on  the  land.  They  probably  calculate  that 
an  edict  of  abolition  once  given  would  be  so  much  done 
toward  the  ultimate  winning  of  the  battle.  They  are  making 


64 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


their  hay  while  their  sun  shines.  But  if  they  could  emanci- 
pate those  four  million  slaves,  in  what  way  would  they  then 
treat  them?  How  would  they  feed  them?  In  what  way 
would  they  treat  the  ruined  owners  of  the  slaves,  and  the 
acres  of  land  which  would  lie  uncultivated?  Of  all  subjects 
with  which  a  man  may  be  called  on  to  deal,  it  is  the  most 
difficult.  But  a  New  England  abolitionist  talks  of  it  as 
though  no  more  were  required  than  an  open  path  for  his 
humanitarian  energies.  **I  could  arrange  it  all  to-morrow 
morning,"  a  gentleman  said  to  me,  who  is  well  known  for  his 
zeal  in  this  cause  ! 

Arrange  it  all  to-morrow  morning — abolition  of  slavery 
having  become  a  fact  during  the  night  1  I  should  not  envy 
that  gentleman  his  morning's  work.  It  was  bad  enough 
with  us ;  but  what  were  our  numbers  compared  with  those  of 
the  Southern  States  ?  We  paid  a  price  for  the  slaves,  but 
no  price  is  to  be  paid  in  this  case.  The  value  of  the  prop- 
erty would  probably  be  lowly  estimated  at  100/,  a  piece  for 
men,  women,  and  children,  or  4,000,000/.  sterling  for  the 
whole  population.  They  form  the  wealth  of  the  South  ;  and 
if  they  were  bought,  what  should  be  done  with  them  ?  They 
are  like  children.  Every  slaveowner  in  the  country — every 
man  who  has  had  aught  to  do  with  slaves  ^will  tell  the 
same  story.  In  Maryland  and  Delaware  are  men  who  hate 
slavery,  who  would  be  only  too  happy  to  enfranchise  their 
slaves ;  but  the  negroes  who  have  been  slaves  are  not  fit  for 
freedom.  In  many  cases,  practically,  they  cannot  be  enfran- 
chised. Give  them  their  liberty,  starting  them  well  in  the 
world  at  what  expense  you  please,  and  at  the  end  of  six 
months  they  will  come  back  upon  your  hands  for  the  means 
of  support.  Everything  must  be  done  for  thefu.  They 
expect  food  and  clothes,  and  instruction  as  to  every  simple 
act  of  life,  as  do  children.  The  negro  domestic  servant  is 
handy  at  his  own  work ;  no  servant  more  so  ;  but  he  cannot 
go  beyond  that.  He  does  not  comprehend  the  object  and 
purport  of  continued  industry.  If  he  have  money,  he  will 
play  with  it — he  will  amuse  himself  with  it.  If  he  have 
none,  he  will  amuse  himself  without  it.  His  work  is  like  a 
school  boy's  task;  he  knows  it  must  be  done,  but  never 
comprehends  that  the  doing  of  it  is  the  very  end  and  essence 
of  his  life.  He  is  a  child  in  all  things,  and  the  extent  of 
prudential  wisdom  to  which  he  ever  attains  is  to  disdain 
emancipation  and  cling  to  the  security  of  his  bondage.  It 


ABOLITION. 


65 


is  true  enough  that  slavery  has  been  a  curse.  Whatever 
may  have  been  its  effect  on  the  negroes,  it  has  been  a  deadly 
curse  upon  the  white  masters. 

The  preaching  of  abolition  during  the  war  is  to  me  either 
the  deadliest  of  sins  or  the  vainest  of  follies.  Its  only  im- 
mediate result  possible  would  be  servile  insurrection.  That 
is  so  manifestly  atrocious,  a  wish  for  it  would  be  so  hellish, 
that  I  do  not  presume  the  preachers  of  abolition  to  entertain 
it.  But  if  that  be  not  meant,  it  must  be  intended  that  an 
act  of  emancipation  should  be  carried  throughout  the  slave 
States — either  in  their  separation  from  the  North,  or  after 
their  subjection  and  consequent  reunion  with  the  North. 
As  regards  the  States  while  in  secession,  the  North  cannot 
operate  upon  their  slaves  any  more  than  England  can  operate 
on  the  slaves  of  Cuba.  But  if  a  reunion  is  to  be  a  precursor 
of  emancipation,  surely  that  reunion  should  be  first  effected. 
A  decision  in  the  Northern  and  Western  mind  on  such  a 
subject  cannot  assist  in  obtaining  that  reunion,  but  must 
militate  against  the  practicability  of  such  an  object.  This 
is  so  well  understood  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  government 
do  not  dare  to  call  themselves  abolitionists.* 

Abolition,  in  truth,  is  a  political  cry.  It  is  the  banner 
of  defiance  opposed  to  secession.  As  the  differences  between 
the  North  and  South  have  grown  with  years,  and  have 
swelled  to  the  proportions  of  national  antipathy.  Southern 
nullification  has  amplified  itself  into  secession,  and  Northern 
free-soil  principles  have  burst  into  this  growth  of  abolition. 
Men  have  not  calculated  the  results.  Charming  pictures 
are  drawn  for  you  of  the  negro  in  a  state  of  Utopian  bliss, 
owning  his  own  hoe  and  eating  his  own  hog;  in  a  paradise, 
where  everything  is  bought  and  sold,  except  his  wife,  his 
little  ones,  and  himself.  But  the  enfranchised  negro  has 
always  thrown  away  his  hoe,  has  eaten  any  man's  hog  but 
his  own,  and  has  too  often  sold  his  daughter  for  a  dollar 
when  any  such  market  has  been  open  to  him. 

I  confess  that  this  cry  of  abolition  has  been  made  pecu- 
liarly displeasing  to  me  by  the  fact  that  the  Northern  aboli- 


*  President  Lincoln  has  proposed  a  plan  for  the  emancipation  of 
slaves  in  the  border  States,  which  gives  compensation  to  the  owners. 
His  doing  so  proves  that  he  regards  present  emancipation  in  the 
Gulf  States  as  quite  out  of  the  question.  It  also  proves  that  he 
looks  forward  to  the  recovery  of  the  border  States  for  the  North, 
but  that  he  does  not  look  forward  to  the  recovery  of  the  Gulf  States. 
VOL.  IL — 6* 


66 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tionist  is  by  no  means  willing  to  give  even  to  the  negro  who 
is  already  free  that  position  in  the  world  which  alone  might 
tend  to  raise  him  in  the  scale  of  human  beings — if  anything 
can  so  raise  liini  and  make  him  fit  for  freedom.  The  aboli- 
tionists hold  that  the  negro  is  the  white  man's  equal.  I  do 
not.  I  see,  or  think  that  I  see,  that  the  negro  is  the  white 
man's  inferior  through  laws  of  nature.  That  he  is  not  men- 
tally fit  to  cope  with  white  men — I  speak  of  the  full-blooded 
negro — and  that  he  must  fill  a  position  simply  servile.  But 
the  abolitionist  declares  him  to  be  the  white  man's  equal. 
But  yet,  when  he  has  him  at  his  elbow,  he  treats  him  with  a 
scorn  which  even  the  negro  can  hardly  endure.  I  will  give 
him  political  equality,  but  not  social  equality,  says  the  abo- 
litionist. But  even  in  this  he  is  untrue.  A  black  man  may 
vote  in  New  York,  but  he  cannot  vote  under  the  same  cir- 
cumstances as  a  white  man.  He  is  subjected  to  qualifica- 
tions which  in  truth  debar  him  from  the  poll.  A  white  man 
TOtes  by  manhood  suffrage,  providing  he  has  been  for  one 
year  an  inhabitant  of  his  State;  but  a  man  of  color  must 
have  been  for  three  years  a  citizen  of  the  State,  and  must  own 
a  property  qualification  of  50/.  free  of  debt.  But  political 
equality  is  not  what  such  men  want,  nor  indeed  is  it  social 
equality.  It  is  social  tolerance  and  social  sympathy,  and  these 
are  denied  to  the  negro.  An  American  abolitionist  would 
not  sit  at  table  with  a  negro.  He  might  do  so  in  England  at 
the  house  of  an  English  duchess,  but  in  his  own  country  the 
proposal  of  such  a  companion  would  be  an  insult  to  him. 
He  will  not  sit  with  him  in  a  public  carriage,  if  he  can  avoid 
it.  In  New  York  I  have  seen  special  street  cars  for  colored 
people.  The  abolitionist  is  struck  with  horror  when  he 
thinks  that  a  man  and  a  brother  should  be  a  slave ;  but  when 
the  man  and  the  brother  has  been  made  free,  he  is  regarded 
with  loathing  and  contempt.  All  this  I  cannot  see  with 
equanimity.  There  is  falsehood  in  it  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end.  The  slave,  as  a  rule,  is  well  treated — gets  all  he 
wants  and  almost  all  he  desires.  The  free  negro,  as  a  rule, 
is  ill  treated,  and  does  not  get  that  consideration  which 
alone  might  put  him  in  the  worldly  position  for  which  his 
advocate  declares  him  to  be  fit.  It  is  false  throughout,  this 
preaching.  The  negro  is  not  the  white  man's  equal  by 
nature.  But  to  the  free  negro  in  the  Northern  States  this 
inequality  is  increased  by  the  white  man's  hardness  to  him. 
In  a  former  book  which  I  wrote  some  few  years  since,  I 


ABOLITION. 


6T 


expressed  an  opinion  as  to  the  probable  destiny  of  this  race 
in  the  West  Indies.  I  will  not  now  go  over  that  question 
again.  I  then  divided  the  inhabitants  of  those  islands  into 
three  classes — the  white,  the  black,  and  the  colored,  taking 
a  nomenclature  which  I  found  there  prevailing.  By  colored 
men  I  alluded  to  mulattoes,  and  all  those  of  mixed  European 
and  African  blood.  The  word  "colored,"  in  the  States, 
seems  to  apply  to  the  whole  negro  race,  whether  full-blooded 
or  half-blooded.  I  allude  to  this  now  because  I  wish  to 
explain  that,  in  speaking  of  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  intel- 
lectual inferiority  of  the  negro  race,  I  allude  to  those  of  pure 
negro  descent — or  of  descent  so  nearly  pure  as  to  make  the 
negro  element  manifestly  predominant.  In  the  West  Indies, 
where  I  had  more  opportunity  of  studying  the  subject,  I 
always  believed  myself  able  to  tell  a  negro  from  a  colored 
man.  Indeed,  the  classes  are  to  a  great  degree  distinct 
there,  the  greater  portion  of  the  retail  trade  of  the  country 
being  in  the  hands  of  the  colored  people.  But  in  the  States 
I  have  been  able  to  make  no  such  distinction.  One  sees 
generally  neither  the  rich  yellow  of  the  West  Indian  mulatto 
nor  the  deep  oily  black  of  the  West  Indian  negro.  The  pre- 
vailing hue  is  a  dry,  dingy  brown — almost  dusty  in  its  dry- 
ness. I  have  observed  but  little  difference  made  between  the 
negro  and  the  half-caste — and  no  difference  in  the  actual 
treatment.  I  have  never  met  in  American  society  any  man 
or  woman  in  whose  veins  there  can  have  been  presumed  to 
be  any  taint  of  African  blood.  In  Jamaica  they  are  daily 
to  be  found  in  society. 

Every  Englishman  probably  looks  forward  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  abolition  of  slavery  at  some  future  day.  I  feel 
as  sure  of  it  as  I  do  of  the  final  judgment.  When  or  how 
it  shall  come,  I  will  not  attempt  to  foretell.  The  mode  which 
seems  to  promise  the  surest  success  and  the  least  present  or 
future  inconvenience,  would  be  an  edict  enfranchising  all 
female  children  born  after  a  certain  date,  and  all  their  chil- 
dren. Under  such  an  arrangement  the  negro  population 
would  probably  die  out  slowly — very  slowly.  What  might 
then  be  the  fate  of  the  cotton  fields  of  the  Gulf  States,  who 
shall  dare  to  say  ?  It  may  be  that  coolies  from  India  and 
from  China  will  then  have  taken  the  place  of  the  negro 
there,  as  they  probably  will  have  done  also  in  Guiana  and 
the  West  Indies. 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  lY. 

WASHINGTON  TO  ST.  LOUIS. 

Though  I  had  felt  Washington  to  be  disagreeable  as  a 
city,  yet  I  was  almost  sorry  to  leave  it  when  the  day  of  my 
departure  came.  I  had  allowed  myself  a  month  for  my  so- 
journ in  the  capital,  and  I  had  stayed  a  month  to  the  day. 
Then  came  the  trouble  of  packing  up,  the  necessity  of  call- 
ing on  a  long  list  of  acquaintances  one  after  another,  the 
feeling  that,  bad  as  Washington  might  be,  I  might  be  going 
to  places  that  were  worse,  a  conviction  that  1  should  get 
beyond  the  reach  of  my  letters,  and  a  sort  of  affection  which 
I  had  acquired  for  my  rooms.  My  landlord,  being  a  colored 
man,  told  me  that  he  was  sorry  I  was  going.  Would  I  not 
remain  ?  Would  I  come  back  to  him  ?  Had  I  been  comfort- 
able ?  Only  for  so  and  so  or  so  and  so,  he  would  have  done 
better  for  me.  No  white  American  citizen,  occupying  the 
position  of  landlord,  would  have  condescended  to  such  com- 
fortable words.  I  knew  the  man  did  not  in  truth  want  me 
to  stay,  as  a  lady  and  gentleman  were  waiting  to  go  in  the 
moment  I  went  out ;  but  I  did  not  the  less  value  the  assur- 
ance. One  hungers  and  thirsts  after  such  civil  words  among 
American  citizens  of  this  class.  The  clerks  and  managers 
at  hotels,  the  officials  at  railway  stations,  the  cashiers  at 
banks,  the  women  in  the  shops — ah  I  they  are  the  worst  of 
all.  An  American  woman  who  is  bound  by  her  position  to 
serve  you — who  is  paid  in  some  shape  to  supply  your  wants, 
whether  to  sell  you  a  bit  of  soap  or  bring  you  a  towel  in 
your  bed-room  at  a  hotel — is,  I  think,  of  all  human  creatures, 
the  most  insolent.  I  certainly  had  a  feeling  of  regret  at 
parting  with  my  colored  friend — and  some  regret  also  as 
regards  a  few  that  were  white. 

As  I  drove  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  through  the  slush 
and  mud,  and  saw,  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  those  wretch- 
edly dirty  horse  sentries  who  had  refused  to  allow  me  to 
trot  through  the  streets,  I  almost  wished  that  I  could  see 
more  of  them.  How  absurd  they  looked,  with  a  whole 
kit  of  rattletraps  strapped  on  their  horses'  backs  behind 
them  —  blankets,  coats,  canteens,  coils  of  rope,  and,  always 


RAILROAD  TRAVEL. 


69 


at  the  top  of  everything  else,  a  tin  pot !  No  doubt  these 
things  are  all  necessary  to  a  mounted  sentry,  or  they  would 
not  have  been  there ;  but  it  always  seemed  as  though  the 
horse  had  been  loaded  gipsy-fashion,  in  a  manner  that  I 
may  perhaps  best  describe  as  higgledy-piggledy,  and  that 
there  was  a  want  of  military  precision  in  the  packing.  The 
man  would  have  looked  more  graceful,  and  the  soldier  more 
warlike,  had  the  pannikin  been  made  to  assume  some  rigidly 
fixed  position  instead  of  dangling  among  the  ropes.  The 
drawn  saber,  too,  never  consorted  well  with  the  dirty  out- 
side woolen  wrapper  which  generally  hung  loose  from  the 
man's  neck.  Heaven  knows,  I  did  not  begrudge  him  his 
comforter  in  that  cold  weather,  or  even  his  long,  uncombed 
shock  of  hair;  but  I  think  he  might  have  been  made  more 
spruce,  and  I  am  sure  that  he  could  not  have  looked  more 
uncomfortable.  As  I  went,  however,  I  felt  for  him  a  sort  of 
affection,  and  wished  in  my  heart  of  hearts  that  he  might  soon 
be  enabled  to  return  to  some  more  congenial  employment. 

I  went  out  by  the  Capitol,  and  saw  that  also,  as  I  then 
believed,  for  the  last  time.  With  all  its  faults  it  is  a  great 
building,  and,  though  unfinished,  is  effective ;  its  very  size 
and  pretension  give  it  a  certain  majesty.  What  will  be  the 
fate  of  that  vast  pile,  and  of  those  other  costly  public  edi- 
fices at  Washington,  should  the  South  succeed  wholly  in 
their  present  enterprise  ?  If  Virginia  should  ever  become 
a  part  of  the  Southern  republic,  Washington  cannot  remain 
the  capital  of  the  Northern  republic.  In  such  case  it  would 
be  almost  better  to  let  Maryland  go  also,  so  that  the  future 
destiny  of  that  unfortunate  city  may  not  be  a  source  of 
trouble,  and  a  stumbling-block  of  opprobrium.  Even  if 
Yirginia  be  saved,  its  position  will  be  most  unfortunate. 

I  fancy  that  the  railroads  in  those  days  must  have  been 
doing  a  very  prosperous  business.  From  New  York  to 
Philadelphia,  thence  on  to  Baltimore,  and  again  to  Washing- 
ton, I  had  found  the  cars  full ;  so  full  that  sundry  passengers 
could  not  find  seats.  Now,  on  my  return  to  Baltimore,  they 
were  again  crowded.  The  stations  were  all  crowded.  Lug- 
gage trains  were  going  in  and  out  as  fast  as  the  rails  could 
carry  them.  Among  the  passengers  almost  half  were  sol- 
diers. I  presume  that  these  were  men  going  on  furlough,  or 
on  special  occasions ;  for  the  regiments  were  of  course  not 
received  by  ordinary  passenger  trains.  About  this  time  a 
return  was  called  for  by  Congress  of  all  the  moneys  paid  by 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  government,  on  account  of  the  army,  to  the  lines  be- 
tween New  York  and  "Washington.  Whether  or  no  it  was 
ever  furnished  I  did  not  hear;  but  it  was  openly  stated  that 
the  colonels  of  regiments  received  large  gratuities  from  cer- 
tain railway  companies  for  the  regiments  passing  over  their 
lines.  Charges  of  a  similar  nature  were  made  against  offi- 
cers, contractors,  quartermasters,  paymasters,  generals,  and 
cabinet  ministers.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  any  of 
these  men  had  dirty  hands.  It  w^as  not  for  me  to  make  in- 
quiries on  such  matters.  But  the  continuance  and  univer- 
sality of  the  accusations  were  dreadful.  When  everybody 
is  suspected  of  being  dishonest,  dishonesty  almost  ceases  to 
be  regarded  as  disgraceful. 

I  will  allude  to  a  charge  made  against  one  member  of 
the  cabinet,  because  the  circumstances  of  the  case  were  all 
acknowledged  and  proved.  This  gentleman  employed  his 
wife's  brother-in-law  to  buy  ships,  and  the  agent  so  employed 
pocketed  about  20,000Z.  by  the  transaction  in  six  months. 
The  excuse  made  was  that  this  profit  was  in  accordance 
with  the  usual  practice  of  the  ship-dealing  trade,  and  that 
it  was  paid  by  the  owners  who  sold,  and  not  by  the  govern- 
ment which  bought.  But  in  so  vast  an  agency  the  ordinary 
rate  of  profit  on  such  business  became  an  enormous  sura ; 
and  the  gentleman  who  made  the  plea  must  surely  have 
understood  that  that  20,000/.  was  in  fact  paid  by  the  gov- 
ernment. It  is  the  purchaser,  and  not  the  seller,  who  in 
fact  pays  all  such  fees.  The  question  is  this :  Should  the 
government  have  paid  so  vast  a  sum  for  one  man's  work  for 
six  months?  And  if  so,  was  it  well  that  that  sum  should 
go  into  the  pocket  of  a  near  relative  of  the  minister  whose 
special  business  it  was  to  protect  the  government  ? 

American  private  soldiers  are  not  pleasant  fellow-travelers. 
They  are  loud  and  noisy,  and  swear  quite  as  much  as  the 
army  could  possibly  have  sworn  in  Flanders.  They  are, 
moreover,  very  dirty;  and  each  man,  with  his  long,  thick 
great-coat,  takes  up  more  space  than  is  intended  to  be  allot- 
ted to  him.  Of  course  I  felt  that  if  I  chose  to  travel  in  a  coun- 
try while  it  had  such  a  piece  of  business  on  its  hands,  I  could 
not  expect  that  everything  should  be  found  in  exact  order. 
The  matter  for  wonder,  perhaps,  was  that  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life  were  so  little  disarranged,  and  that  any  traveling  at 
all  was  practicable.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  remains  that 
American  private  soldiers  are  not  agreeable  fellow-travelers. 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


n 


It  was  my  present  intention  to  go  due  west  across  the 
country  into  Missouri,  skirting,  as  it  were,  the  line  of  the 
war  which  had  now  extended  itself  from  the  Atlantic  across 
into  Kansas.  There  were  at  this  time  three  main  armies — 
that  of  the  Potomac,  as  the  army  of  Virginia  was  called, 
of  which  McClellan  held  the  command ;  that  of  Kentucky, 
under  General  Buell,  who  was  stationed  at  Louisville  on 
the  Ohio ;  and  the  army  on  the  Mississippi,  which  had  been 
under  Fremont,  and  of  which  General  Halleck  now  held  the 
command.  To  these  were  opposed  the  three  rebel  armies 
of  Beauregard,  in  Virginia;  of  Johnston,  on  the  borders  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee;  and  of  Price,  in  Missouri.  There 
was  also  a  fourth  army  in  Kansas,  west  of  Missouri,  under 
General  Hunter;  and  while  I  was  in  Washington  another 
general,  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  "coming  man,"  was 
sent  down  to  Kansas  to  participate  in  General  Hunter's 
command.  This  was  General  Jim  Lane,  who  resigned  a 
seat  in  the  Senate  in  order  that  he  might  undertake  this 
military  duty.  When  he  reached  Kansas,  having  on  his 
route  made  sundry  violent  abolition  speeches,  and  pro- 
claimed his  intention  of  sweeping  slavery  out  of  the  South- 
western States,  he  came  to  loggerheads  with  his  superior 
officer  respecting  their  relative  positions. 

On  my  arrival  at  Baltimore,  I  found  the  place  knee-deep 
in  mud  and  slush  and  half-melted  snow.  It  was  then  rain- 
ing hard, — raining  dirt,  not  water,  as  it  sometimes  does. 
Worse  weather  for  soldiers"  out  in  tents  could  not  be  im- 
agined—  nor  for  men  who  were  not  soldiers,  but  who, 
nevertheless,  were  compelled  to  leave  their  houses.  I  only 
remained  at  Baltimore  one  day,  and  then  started  again, 
leaving  there  the  greater  part  of  my  baggage.  I  had  a 
vague  hope — a  hope  which  I  hardly  hoped  to  realize — 
that  I  might  be  able  to  get  through  to  the  South.  At  any 
rate  I  made  myself  ready  for  the  chance  by  making  my 
traveling  impediments  as  light  as  possible,  and  started  from 
Baltimore,  prepared  to  endure  all  the  discomfort  wiiich 
lightness  of  baggage  entails.  My  route  lay  over  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  by  Pittsburg  and  Cincinnati,  and  my  first  stopping 
place  was  at  Harrisburg,  the  political  capital  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. There  is  nothing  special  at  Harrisburg  to  arrest 
any  traveler;  but  the  local  legislature  of  the  State  was 
then  sitting,  and  I  was  desirous  of  seeing  the  Senate  and 


12 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Representatives  of  at  any  rate  one  State,  during  its  period 
of  vitality. 

In  Pennsylvania  the  General  Assembly,  as  the  joint  legis- 
lature is  called,  sits  every  year,  commencing  their  work  early 
in  January,  and  continuing  till  it  be  finished.  The  usual 
period  of  sitting  seems  to  be  about  ten  weeks.  In  the 
majority  of  States,  the  legislature  only  sits  every  other  year. 
In  this  State  it  sits  every  year,  and  the  Representatives  are 
elected  annually.  The  Senators  are  elected  for  three  years, 
a  third  of  the  body  being  chosen  each  year.  The  two 
chambers  were  ugly,  convenient  rooms,  arranged  very  much 
after  the  fashion  of  the  halls  of  Congress  at  Washington. 
Each  member  had  his  own  desk  and  his  own  chair.  They 
were  placed  in  the  shape  of  a  horseshoe,  facing  the  chair- 
man, before  whom  sat  three  clerks.  In  neither  House  did 
I  hear  any  set  speech.  The  voices  of  the  Speaker  and  of 
the  Clerks  of  the  Houses  were  heard  more  frequently  than 
those  of  the  members ;  and  the  business  seemed  to  be  done 
in  a  dull,  serviceable,  methodical  manner,  likely  to  be  use- 
ful to  the  country,  and  very  uninteresting  to  the  gentlemen 
engaged.  Indeed  at  Washington  also,  in  Congress,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  there  was  much  less  of  set  speeches 
than  in  our  House  of  Commons.  With  us  there  are  certain 
men  whom  it  seems  impossible  to  put  down,  and  by  whom 
the  time  of  Parliament  is  occupied  from  night  to  night,  with 
advantage  to  no  one  and  with  satisfaction  to  none  but  them- 
selves. I  do  not  think  that  the  evil  prevails  to  the  same 
extent  in  America,  either  in  Congress  or  in  the  State  legis- 
latures. As  regards  Washington,  this  good  result  may  be 
assisted  by  a  salutary  practice  which,  as  I  was  assured, 
prevails  there.  A  member  gets  his  speech  printed  at  the 
government  cost,  and  sends  it  down  free  by  post  to  his  con- 
stituents, without  troubling  either  the  House  with  hearing 
it  or  himself  with  speaking  it.  I  cannot  but  think  that 
the  practice  might  be  copied  with  success  on  our  side  of  the 
water. 

The  appearance  of  the  members  of  the  legislature  of 
Pennsylvania  did  not  impress  me  very  favorably.  I  do  not 
know  why  we  should  wish  a  legislator  to  be  neat  in  his 
dress,  and  comely,  in  some  degree,  in  his  personal  appear- 
ance. There  is  no  good  reason,  perhaps,  why  they  should 
have  cleaner  shirts  than  their  outside  brethren,  or  have 
been  more  particular  in  the  use  of  soap  and  water,  and 


THE  CAPITAL  OP  PENNSYLVANIA. 


Y3 


brush  and  comb.  But  I  have  an  idea  that  if  ever  our  own 
Parliament  becomes  dirty,  it  will  lose  its  prestige;  and  I 
cannot  but  think  that  the  Parliament  of  Pennsylvania  would 
gain  an  accession  of  dignity  by  some  slightly  increased  de- 
votion to  the  Graces.  I  saw  in  the  two  Houses  but  one 
gentleman  (a  Senator)  who  looked  like  a  Quaker;  but  even 
he  was  a  very  untidy  Quaker. 

I  paid  my  respects  to  the  Governor,  and  found  him 
briskly  employed  in  arranging  the  appointments  of  offi- 
cers. All  the  regimental  appointments  to  the  volunteer 
regiments — and  that  is  practically  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
army* — are  made  by  the  State  in  which  the  regiments  are 
mustered.  AVhen  the  affair  commenced,  the  captains  and 
lieutenants  were  chosen  by  the  men ;  but  it  was  found  that 
this  would  not  do.  When  the  skeleton  of  a  State  militia 
only  was  required,  such  an  arrangement  was  popular  and 
not  essentially  injurious;  but  now  that  war  had  become  a 
reality,  and  that  volunteers  were  required  to  obey  discipline, 
some  other  mode  of  promotion  was  found  necessary.  As 
far  as  I  could  understand,  the  appointments  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  State  Governor,  who  however  was  expected,  in 
the  selection  of  the  superior  officers,  to  be  guided  by  the  ex- 
pressed wishes  of  the  regiment,  when  no  objection  existed 
to  such  a  choice.  In  the  present  instance  the  Governor's 
course  was  very  thorny.  Certain  unfinished  regiments  were 
in  the  act  of  being  amalgamated — two  perfect  regiments 
being  made  up  from  perhaps  five  imperfect  regiments,  and 
so  on.  But  though  the  privates  had  not  been  forthcoming 
to  the  full  number  for  each  expected  regiment,  there  had 
been  no  such  dearth  of  officers,  and  consequently  the  pres- 
ent operation  consisted  in  reducing  their  number. 

Nothing  can  be  much  uglier  than  the  State  House  at 
Harrisburg,  but  it  commands  a  magnificent  view  of  one  of 
the  valleys  into  which  the  Alleghany  Mountains  is  broken. 
Harrisburg  is  immediately  under  the  range,  probably  at  its 
finest  point,  and  the  railway  running  west  from  the  town  to 
Pittsburg,  Cincinnati,  and  Chicago,  passes  right  over  the 
chain.  The  Kne  has  been  magnificently  engineered,  and  the 
scenery  is  very  grand.  I  went  over  the  AUeghanies  in  mid- 
winter, when  they  were  covered  with  snow,  but  even  when 


*  The  army  at  this  time  consisted  nominally  of  660,000  men,  of 
whom  only  20,000  were  regulars. 
VOL.  II. — T 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


SO  seen  they  were  very  fine.  The  view  down  the  valley 
from  Altoona,  a  point  near  the  summit,  must  in  summer  be 
excessively  lovely.  I  stopped  at  Altoona  one  night,  with 
the  object  of  getting  about  among  the  hills  and  making 
the  best  of  the  winter  view ;  but  I  found  it  impossible  to 
w^alk.  The  snow  had  become  frozen  and  was  like  glass.  I 
could  not  progress  a  mile  in  any  way.  With  infinite  labor 
I  climbed  to  the  top  of  one  little  hill,  and  when  there  be- 
came aware  that  the  descent  would  be  very  much  more  dif- 
ficult. I  did  get  down,  but  should  not  choose  to  describe 
the  manner  in  which  I  accomplished  the  descent. 

In  running  down  the  mountains  to  Pittsburg  an  accident 
occurred  which  in  any  other  country  would  have  thrown  the 
engine  off  the  line,  and  have  reduced  the  carriages  behind 
the  engine  to  a  heap  of  ruins.  But  here  it  had  no  other 
effect  than  that  of  delaying  us  for  three  or  four  hours. 
The  tire  of  one  of  the  heavy  driving  wheels  flew  oft",  and  in 
the  shock  the  body  of  the  wheel  itself  was  broken,  one 
spoke  and  a  portion  of  the  circumference  of  the  wheel  was 
carried  away,  and  the  steam-chamber  was  ripped  open. 
Nevertheless  the  train  was  pulled  up,  neither  the  engine 
nor  any  of  the  carriages  got  off  the  line,  and  the  men  in 
charge  of  the  train  seemed  to  think  very  lightly  of  the  mat- 
ter. I  was  amused  to  see  how  little  was  made  of  the  affair 
by  any  of  the  passengers.  In  England  a  delay  of  three 
hours  would  in  itself  produce  a  great  amount  of  grumbling, 
or  at  least  many  signs  of  discomfort  and  temporary  unhap- 
piness.  But  here  no  one  said  a  word.  Some  of  the  younger 
men  got  out  and  looked  at  the  ruined  wheel ;  but  the  most 
of  the  passengers  kept  their  seats,  chewed  their  tobacco, 
and  went  to  sleep.  In  all  such  matters  an  American  is 
much  more  patient  than  an  Englishman.  To  sit  quiet, 
without  speech,  and  ruminate  in  some  contorted  position 
of  body  comes  to  him  by  nature.  On  this  occasion  I  did 
not  hear  a  word  of  complaint — nor  yet  a  word  of  surprise 
or  thankfulness  that  the  accident  had  been  attended  with 
no  serious  result.  "I  have  got  a  furlough  for  ten  days," 
one  soldier  said  to  me,  "and  I  have  missed  every  con- 
nection all  through  from  Washington  here.  I  shall  have 
just  time  to  turn  round  and  go  back  when  I  get  home."  But 
he  did  not  seem  to  be  in  any  way  dissatisfied.  He  had  not 
referred  to  his  relatives  when  he  spoke  of  "missing  his 
connections,"  but  to  his  want  of  good  fortune  as  regarded 


PITTSBURG. 


railway  traveling.  He  had  reached  Baltimore  too  late  for 
the  train  on  to  Harrisburg,  and  Harrisburg  too  late  for  the 
train  on  to  Pittsburg,  Now  he  must  again  reach  Pittsburg 
too  late  for  his  further  journey.  But  nevertheless  he  seemed 
to  be  well  pleased  with  his  position. 

Pittsburg  is  the  Merthyr-Tydvil  of  Pennsylvania  —  or 
perhaps  I  should  better  describe  it  as  an  amalgamation  of 
Swansea,  Merthyr-Tydvil,  and  South  Shields.  It  is,  without 
exception,  the  blackest  place  which  I  ever  saw.  The  three 
English  towns  which  I  have  named  are  very  dirty,  but  all 
their  combined  soot  and  grease  and  dinginess  do  not  equal 
that  of  Pittsburg.  As  regards  scenery  it  is  beautifully  sit- 
uated, being  at  the  foot  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  and 
at  the  juncture  of  the  two  rivers  Monongahela  and  Alle- 
ghany. Here,  at  the  town,  they  come  together,  and  form 
the  River  Ohio.  Nothing  can  be  more  picturesque  than  the 
site,  for  the  spurs  of  the  mountains  come  down  close  round 
the  town,  and  the  rivers  are  broad  and  swift,  and  can  be 
seen  for  miles  from  heights  which  may  be  reached  in  a  short 
walk.  Even  the  filth  and  wondrous  blackness  of  the  place 
are  picturesque  when  looked  down  upon  from  above.  The 
tops  of  the  churches  are  visible,  and  some  of  the  larger 
buildings  may  be  partially  traced  through  the  thick,  brown, 
settled  smoke.  But  the  city  itself  is  buried  in  a  dense 
cloud.  The  atmosphere  was  especially  heavy  when  I  was 
there,  and  the  effect  was  probably  increased  by  the  general 
darkness  of  the  weather.  The  Monongahela  is  crossed  by 
a  fine  bridge,  and  on  the  other  side  the  ground  rises  at 
once,  almost  with  the  rapidity  of  a  precipice;  so  that  a 
commanding  view  is  obtained  down  upon  the  town  and  the 
two  rivers  and  the  different  bridges,  from  a  height  imme- 
diately above  them.  I  was  never  more  in  love  with  smoke 
and  dirt  than  when  I  stood  here  and  watched  the  darkness 
of  night  close  in  upon  the  floating  soot  which  hovered  over 
the  house-tops  of  the  city.  I  cannot  say  that  I  saw  the  sun 
set,  for  there  was  no  sun.  I  should  say  that  the  sun  never 
shone  at  Pittsburg,  as  foreigners  who  visit  London  in  No- 
vember declare  that  the  sun  never  shines  there. 

Walking  along  the  river  side  I  counted  thirty-two  steam- 
ers, all  beached  upon  the  shore,  with  their  bows  toward  the 
land — large  boats,  capable  probably  of  carrying  from  one 
to  two  hundred  passengers  each,  and  about  three  hundred 
tons  of  merchandise.    On  inquiry  I  found  that  many  of 


76 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


these  were  not  now  at  work.  They  were  resting  idle,  the 
trade  down  the  Mississippi  below  St.  Louis  having  been  cut 
ofi'  by  the  war.  Many  of  them,  however,  were  still  running, 
the  passage  down  the  river  being  open  to  Wheeling  in  Vir- 
ginia, to  Portsmouth,  Cincinnati,  and  the  whole  of  South 
Ohio,  to  Louisville  in  Kentucky,  and  to  Cairo  in  Illinois, 
where  the  Ohio  joins  the  Mississippi.  The  amount  of  traf- 
fic carried  on  by  these  boats  while  the  country  was  at  peace 
within  itself  was  very  great,  and  conclusive  as  to  the  in- 
creasing prosperity  of  the  people.  It  seems  that  everybody 
travels  in  America,  and  that  nothing  is  thought  of  distance. 
A  young  man  will  step  into  a  car  and  sit  beside  you,  with 
that  easy,  careless  air  which  is  common  to  a  railway  passen- 
ger in  England  who  is  passing  from  one  station  to  the 
next;  and  on  conversing  with  him  you  will  find  that  he  is 
going  seven  or  eight  hundred  miles.  He  is  supplied  with 
fresh  newspapers  three  or  four  times  a  day  as  he  passes  by 
the  towns  at  which  they  are  published ;  he  eats  a  large  as- 
sortment of  gum-drops  and  apples,  and  is  quite  as  much  at 
home  as  in  his  own  house.  On  board  the  river  boats  it  is 
the  same  with  him,  with  this  exception,  that  when  there  he 
can  get  whisky  when  he  wants  it.  He  knows  nothing  of  the 
ennui  of  traveling,  and  never  seems  to  long  for  the  end  of 
his  journey,  as  travelers  do  with  us.  Should  his  boat  come 
to  grief  upon  the  river,  and  lay  by  for  a  day  or  a  night,  it 
does  not  in  the  least  disconcert  him.  He  seats  himself  upon 
three  chairs,  takes  a  bite  of  tobacco,  thrusts  his  hand  into 
his  trowsers  pockets,  and  revels  in  an  elysium  of  his  own. 

I  was  told  that  the  stockholders  in  these  boats  were  in  a 
bad  way  at  the  present  time.  There  were  no  dividends 
going.  The  same  story  was  repeated  as  to  many  and  many 
an  investment.  Where  the  war  created  business,  as  it  had 
done  on  some  of  the  main  lines  of  railroad  and  in  some 
special  towns,  money  was  passing  very  freely;  but  away 
from  this,  ruin  seemed  to  have  fallen  on  the  enterprise  of 
the  country.  Men  were  not  broken  hearted,  nor  were  they 
even  melancholy;  but  they  were  simply  ruined.  That  is 
nothing  in  the  States,  so  long  as  the  ruined  man  has  the 
means  left  to  him  of  supplying  his  daily  wants  till  he  can 
start  himself  again  in  life.  It  is  almost  the  normal  condition 
of  the  American  man  in  business;  and  therefore  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  that  when  this  war  is  over,  and  things  begin 
to  settle  themselves  into  new  grooves,  commerce  will  recover 


riTTSBURQ. 


herself  move  quickly  there  than  she  would  do  among  any- 
other  people.  It  is  so  common  a  thing  to  hear  of  an  enter- 
prise that  has  never  paid  a  dollar  of  interest  on  the  original 
outlay — of  hotels,  canals,  railroads,  banks,  blocks  of  houses, 
etc.  that  never  paid  even  in  the  happy  days  of  peace — that 
one  is  tempted  to  disregard  the  absence  of  dividends,  and 
to  believe  that  such  a  trifling  accident  will  not  act  as  any 
check  on  future  speculation.  In  no  country  has  pecuniary 
ruin  been  so  common  as  in  the  States;  but  then  in  no  coun- 
try is  pecuniary  ruin  so  little  ruinous.  "We  are  a  recuper- 
ative people,"  a  west-country  gentleman  once  said  to  me.  I 
doubted  the  propriety  of  his  word,  but  I  acknowledged  the 
truth  of  his  assertion. 

Pittsburg  and  Alleghany — which  latter  is  a  town  similar 
in  its  nature  to  Pittsburg,  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  of 
the  same  name — regard  themselves  as  places  apart;  but 
they  are  in  effect  one  and  the  same  city.  They  live  under 
the  same  blanket  of  soot,  which  is  woven  by  the  joint  efforts 
of  the  two  places.  Their  united  population  is  135,000,  of 
which  Alleghany  owns  about  50,000.  The  industry  of  the 
towns  is  of  that  sort  which  arises  from  a  union  of  coal  and 
iron  in  the  vicinity.  The  Pennsylvanian  coal  fields  are  the 
most  prolific  in  the  Union ;  and  Pittsburg  is  therefore  great, 
exactly  as  Merthyr-Tydvil  and  Birmingham  are  great. 
But  the  foundery  work  at  Pittsburg  is  more  nearly  allied  to 
the  heavy,  rough  works  of  the  Welsh  coal  metropolis  than 
to  the  finish  and  polish  of  Birmingham. 

"Why  cannot  you  consume  your  own  smoke  ?"  I  asked  a 
gentleman  there.  "Fuel  is  so  cheap  that  it  would  not  pay," 
he  answered.  His  idea  of  the  advantage  of  consuming 
smoke  was  confined  to  the  question  of  its  paying  as  a  sim- 
ple operation  in  itself.  The  consequent  cleanliness  and  im- 
provement in  the  atmosphere  had  not  entered  into  his  cal- 
culations. Any  such  result  might  be  a  fortuitous  benefit, 
but  was  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  make  any  effort  in 
that  direction  expedient  on  its  own  account.  "  Coal  was 
burned,"  he  said,  "in  the  founderies  at  something  less  than 
two  dollars  a  ton;  while  that  was  the  case,  it  could  not 
answer  the  purpose  of  any  iron-founder  to  put  up  an  appa- 
ratus for  the  consumption  of  smoke."  I  did  not  pursue 
the  argument  any  further,  as  I  perceived  that  we  were  look- 
ing at  the  matter  from  two  different  points  of  view. 

Everything  in  the  hotel  was  black ;  not  black  to  the  eye, 
VOL.  II. — 1* 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


for  the  eye  teaches  itself  to  discriminate  colors  even  when 
loaded  with  dirt,  bat  black  to  the  touch.  On  coming  out 
of  a  tub  of  water  my  foot  took  an  impress  from  the  carpet 
exactly  as  it  would  have  done  had  I  trod  barefooted  on  a 
path  laid  with  soot.  I  thought  that  I  was  turning  negro 
upward,  till  I  put  my  wet  hand  upon  the  carpet,  and  found 
that  the  result  was  the  same.  And  yet  the  carpet  was  green 
to  the  eye — a  dull,  dingy  green,  but  still  green.  "You 
shouldn't  damp  your  feet,"  a  man  said  to  me,  to  whom  I 
mentioned  the  catastrophe.  Certainly,  Pittsburg  is  the 
dirtiest  place  I  ever  saw ;  but  it  is,  as  I  said  before,  very 
picturesque  in  its  dirt  when  looked  at  from  above  the 
blanket. 

From  Pittsburg  I  went  on  by  train  to  Cincinnati,  and 
was  soon  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  I  confess  that  I  have  never 
felt  any  great  regard  for  Pennsylvania.  It  has  always  had, 
in  my  estimation,  a  low  character  for  commercial  honesty, 
and  a  certain  flavor  of  pretentious  hypocrisy.  This  probably 
has  been  much  owing  to  the  acerbity  and  pungency  of  Sydney 
Smith's  witty  denunciations  against  the  drab-colored  State. 
It  is  noted  for  repudiation  of  its  own  debts,  and  for  sharp- 
ness in  exaction  of  its  own  bargains.  It  has  been  always 
smart  in  banking.  It  has  given  Buchanan  as  a  President 
to  the  country,  and  Cameron  as  a  Secretary  of  War  to  the 
government !  When  the  battle  of  Bull's  Run  was  to  be 
fought,  Pennsylvanian  soldiers  were  the  men  who,  on  that 
day,  threw  down  their  arms  because  the  three  months'  term 
for  which  they  had  been  enlisted  was  then  expired !  Penn- 
sylvania does  not,  in  my  mind,  stand  on  a  par  with  Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut,  New  York,  Illinois,  or  Virginia.  We 
are  apt  to  connect  the  name  of  Benjamin  Franklin  with 
Pennsylvania,  but  Franklin  was  a  Boston  man.  Neverthe- 
less, Pennsylvania  is  rich  and  prosperous.  Indeed  it  bears 
all  those  marks  which  Quakers  generally  leave  behind 
them. 

I  had  some  little  personal  feeling  in  visiting  Cincinnati, 
because  my  mother  had  lived  there  for  some  time,  and  had 
there  been  concerned  in  a  commercial  enterprise,  by  which 
no  one,  I  believe,  made  any  great  sum  of  money.  Between 
thirty  and  forty  years  ago  she  built  a  bazaar  in  Cincinnati, 
which,  I  was  assured  by  the  present  owner  of  the  house,  was 
at  the  time  of  its  erection  considered  to  be  the  great  build- 
ing of  the  town.    It  has  been  sadly  eclipsed  now,  and  by  no 


CINCINNATI. 


Y9 


means  rears  its  head  proudly  among  the  great  blocks 
around  it.  It  had  become  a  "Physio-medical  Institute" 
when  I  was  there,  and  was  under  the  dominion  of  a  quack 
doctor  on  one  side,  and  of  a  college  of  rights  of  women 
female  medical  professors  on  the  other.  "  I  believe,  sir, 
no  man  or  woman  ever  yet  made  a  dollar  in  that  building ; 
and  as  for  rent,  I  don't  even  expect  it."  Such  was  the 
account  given  of  the  unfortunate  bazaar  by  the  present 
proprietor. 

Cincinnati  has  long  been  known  as  a  great  town — con- 
spicuous among  all  towns  for  the  number  of  hogs  which  are 
there  killed,  salted,  and  packed.  It  is  the  great  hog  metrop- 
olis of  the  Western  States  ;  but  Cincinnati  has  not  grown 
with  the  rapidity  of  other  towns.  It  has  now  110,000  in- 
habitants, but  then  it  got  an  early  start.  St.  Louis,  which 
is  west  of  it  again,  near  the  confluence  of  the  Missouri  and 
Mississippi,  has  gone  ahead  of  it.  Cincinnati  stands  on  the 
Ohio  River,  separated  by  a  ferry  from  Kentucky,  which  is  a 
slave  State.  Ohio  itself  is  a  free-soil  State.  When  the 
time  comes  for  arranging  the  line  of  division,  if  such  time 
shall  ever  come,  it  will  be  ■\iery  hard  to  say  where  Northern 
feeling  ends  and  where  Southern  wishes  commence.  New- 
port and  Covington,  which  are  in  Kentucky,  are  suburbs  of 
Cincinnati ;  and  yet  in  these  places  slavery  is  rife.  The 
domestic  servants  are  mostly  slaves,  though  it  is  essential 
that  those  so  kept  should  be  known  as  slaves  who  will  not 
run  away.  It  is  understood  that  a  slave  who  escapes  into 
Ohio  will  not  be  caught  and  given  up  by  the  intervention 
of  the  Ohio  police  ;  and  from  Covington  or  Newport  any 
slave  with  ease  can  escape  into  Ohio.  But  when  that  di- 
vision takes  place,  no  river  like  the  Ohio  can  form  the 
boundary  between  the  divided  nations.  Such  rivers  are  the 
highways,  round  which  in  this  country  people  have  clustered 
themselves.  A  river  here  is  not  a  natural  barrier,  but  a 
connecting  street.  It  would  be  as  well  to  make  a  railway  a 
division,  or  the  center  line  of  a  city  a  national  boundary. 
Kentucky  and  Ohio  States  are  joined  together  by  the  Ohio 
River,  with  Cincinnati  on  one  side  and  Louisville  on  the 
other ;  and  I  do  not  think  that  man's  act  can  upset  these 
ties  of  nature.  But  between  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  there 
is  no  such  bond  of  union.  There  a  mathematical  line  has 
been  simply  drawn,  a  continuation  of  that  line  which  divides 
Virginia  from  North  Carolina,  to  which  two  latter  States 


80 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Kentucky  and  Tennessee  belonged  when  the  thirteen  original 
States  first  formed  themselves  into  a  Union.  But  that  math- 
ematical line  has  oifered  no  peculiar  advantages  to  popula- 
tion. No  great  towns  cluster  there,  and  no  strong  social 
interests  would  be  dissevered  should  Kentucky  throw  in  her 
lot  with  the  North,  and  Tennessee  with  the  South ;  but 
Kentucky  owns  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  slaves,  and  those 
slaves  must  either  be  emancipated  or  removed  before  such  a 
junction  can  be  firmly  settled. 

The  great  business  of  Cincinnati  is  hog  killing  now,  as  it 
used  to  be  in  the  old  days  of  which  I  have  so  often  heard. 
It  seems  to  be  an  established  fact,  that  in  this  portion  of 
the  world  the  porcine  genus  are  all  hogs.  One  never  hears 
of  a  pig.  With  us  a  trade  in  hogs  and  pigs  is  subject  to 
some  little  contumely.  There  is  a  feeling,  which  has  perhaps 
never  been  expressed  in  words,  but  which  certainly  exists, 
that  these  animals  are  not  so  honorable  in  their  bearings  as 
sheep  and  oxen.  It  is  a  prejudice  which  by  no  means  exists  in 
Cincinnati.  There  hog  killing  and  salting  and  packing  is 
very  honorable,  and  the  great  men  in  the  trade  are  the  mer- 
chant princes  of  the  cit3\  I  went  to  see  the  performance, 
feeling  it  to  be  a  duty  to  inspect  everywhere  that  which 
I  found  to  be  of  most  importance  ;  but  I  will  not  describe 
it.  There  were  a  crowd  of  men  operating,  and  I  was  told 
that  the  point  of  honor  was  to  put  through"  a  hog  a 
minute.  It  must  be  understood  that  the  animal  enters  upon 
the  ceremony  alive,  and  comes  out  in  that  cleanly,  disem- 
boweled guise  in  which  it  may  sometimes  be  seen  hanging 
up  previous  to  the  operation  of  the  pork  butcher's  knife. 
To  one  special  man  was  appointed  a  performance  which 
seemed  to  be  specially  disagreeable,  so  that  he  appeared 
despicable  in  my  eyes  ;  but  when  on  inquiry  I  learned  that 
he  earned  five  dollars  (or  a  pound  sterling)  a  day,  my  judg- 
ment as  to  his  position  was  reversed.  And,  after  all,  what 
matters  the  ugly  nature  of  such  an  occupation  when  a  man 
is  used  to  it  ? 

Cincinnati  is  like  all  other  American  towns,  with  seciond, 
third,  and  fourth  streets,  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth  streets, 
and  so  on.  Then  the  cross  streets  are  named  chiefly  from 
trees.  Chestnut,  walnut,  locust,  etc,  I  do  not  know  whence 
has  come  this  fancy  for  naming  streets  after  trees  in  the 
States,  but  it  is  very  general.  The  town  is  well  built,  with 
good  fronts  to  many  of  the  houses,  with  large  shops  and 


CINCINNATI. 


81 


larger  stores  ;  of  course  also  with  an  enormous  hotel,  which 
has  never  paid  anything  like  a  proper  dividend  to  the  spec- 
ulator who  built  it.  It  is  always  the  same  story.  But 
these  towns  shame  our  provincial  towns  by  their  breadth 
and  grandeur.  I  am  afraid  that  speculators  with  us  are 
trammeled  by  an  ''ignorant  impatience  of  ruin."  I  should 
not  myself  like  to  live  in  Cincinnati  or  in  any  of  these  towns. 
They  are  slow,  dingy,  and  uninteresting ;  but  they  all  pos- 
sess an  air  of  substantial,  civic  dignity.  It  must,  however, 
be  remembered  that  the  Americans  live  much  more  in  towns 
than  we  do.  All  with  us  that  are  rich  and  aristocratic  and 
luxurious  live  in  the  country,  frequenting  the  metropolis  for 
only  a  portion  of  the  year.  But  all  that  are  rich  and  aristo- 
cratic and  luxurious  in  the  States  live  in  the  towns.  Our 
provincial  towns  are  not  generally  chosen  as  the  residences 
of  our  higher  classes. 

Cincinnati  has  170,000  inhabitants,  and  there  are  14,000 
children  at  the  free  schools — which  is  about  one  in  twelve 
of  the  whole  population.  This  number  gives  the  average 
of  scholars  throughout  the  year  ended  30th  of  June,  1861. 
But  there  are  other  schools  in  Cincinnati — parish  schools 
and  private  schools — and  it  is  stated  to  me  that  there  were  in 
all  32,000  children  attending  school  in  the  city  throughout 
the  year.  The  education  at  the  State  schools  is  very  good. 
Thirty-four  teachers  are  employed,  at  an  average  sg-lary  of 
92Z.  each,  ranging  from  260/.  to  60/.  per  annum.  It  is  in 
this  matter  of  education  that  the  cities  of  the  free  States  of 
America  have  done  so  much  for  the  civilization  and  welfare 
of  their  population.  This  fact  cannot  be  repeated  in  their 
praise  too  often.  Those  who  have  the  management  of  affairs, 
who  are  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  are  desirous  of  giving  to  all 
an  opportunity  of  raising  themselves  in  the  scale  of  human 
beings.  I  dislike  universal  suffrage ;  I  dislike  votes  by 
ballot ;  I  dislike  above  all  things  the  tyranny  of  democracy. 
But  I  do  like  the  political  feeling — for  it  is  a  political  feel- 
ing— which  induces  every  educated  American  to  lend  a  hand 
to  the  education  of  his  fellow-citizens.  It  shows,  if  nothing 
else  does  so,  a  germ  of  truth  in  that  doctrine  of  equality. 
It  is  a  doctrine  to  be  forgiven  when  he  who  preaches  it  is  in 
truth  striving  to  raise  others  to  his  own  level ;  though  utterly 
unpardonable  when  the  preacher  would  pull  down  others  to 
his  level. 

Leaving  Cincinnati,  I  again  entered  a  slave  State — 


82 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


namely,  Kentucky.  When  the  war  broke  out,  Kentucky 
took  upon  itself  to  say  that  it  would  be  neutral,  as  if  neu- 
trality in  such  a  position  could  by  any  means  have  been 
possible  !  Neutrality  on  the  borders  of  secession,  on  the 
battle-field  of  the  coming  contest,  was  of  course  impossible. 
Tennessee,  to  the  south,  had  joined  the  South  by  a  regular 
secession  ordinance.  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Indiana,  to  the 
north,  were  of  course  true  to  the  Union.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances it  became  necessary  that  Kentucky  should  choose 
her  side.  With  the  exception  of  the  little  State  of  Dela- 
ware, in  which  from  her  position  secession  would  have  been 
impossible,  Kentucky  was,  I  think,  less  inclined  to  rebellion, 
more  desirous  of  standing  by  the  North,  than  any  other  of 
the  slave  States.  She  did  all  she  could,  however,  to  put 
off  the  evil  day  of  so  evil  a  choice.  Abolition  within  her 
borders  was  held  to  be  abominable  as  strongly  as  it  was  so 
held  in  Georgia.  She  had  no  sympathy,  and  could  have 
none,  with  the  teachings  and  preachings  of  Massachusetts. 
But  she  did  not  wish  to  belong  to  a  confederacy  of  which 
the  Northern  States  were  to  be  the  declared  enemy,  and  be 
the  border  State  of  the  South  under  such  circumstances. 
She  did  all  she  could  for  personal  neutrality.  She  made 
that  effort  for  general  reconciliation  of  which  I  have  spoken 
as  the  Crittenden  Compromise.  But  compromises  and  rec- 
onciliation were  not  as  yet  possible,  and  therefore  it  was 
necessary  that  she  should  choose  her  part.  Her  governor 
declared  for  secession,  and  at  first  also  her  legislature  was 
inclined  to  follow  the  governor.  But  no  overt  act  of  se- 
cession by  the  State  was  committed,  and  at  last  it  was 
decided  that  Kentucky  should  be  declared  to  be  loyal.  It 
was  in  fact  divided.  Those  on  the  southern  border  joined 
the  secessionists  ;  whereas  the  greater  portion  of  the  State, 
containing  Frankfort,  the  capital,  and  the  would-be  seces- 
sionist governor,  who  lived  there,  joined  the  North.  Men 
in  fact  became  Unionists  or  secessionists  not  by  their  own 
conviction,  but  through  the  necessity  of  their  positions  ; 
and  Kentucky,  through  the  necessity  of  her  position,  became 
one  of  the  scenes  of  civil  war. 

I  must  confess  that  the  difficulty  of  the  position  of  the 
whole  country  seems  to  me  to  have  been  under-estimated  in 
England.  In  common  life  it  is  not  easy  to  arrange  the 
circumstances  of  a  divorce  between  man  and  wife,  all  whose 
belongings  and  associations  have  for  many  years  been  in 


SLAVERY  AND  ABOLITION. 


83 


common.  Their  children,  their  money,  their  house,  their 
friends,  their  secrets  have  been  joint  property,  and  have 
formed  bonds  of  union.  But  yet  such  quarrels  may  arise, 
such  mutual  antipathy,  such  acerbity  and  even  ill  usage, 
that  all  who  know  them  admit  that  a  separation  is  needed. 
So  it  is  here  in  the  States.  Free  soil  and  slave  soil  could, 
while  both  were  young  and  unused  to  power,  go  on  to- 
gether— not  without  many  jars  and  unhappy  bickerings,  but 
they  did  go  on  together.  But  now  they  must  part ;  and 
how  shall  the  parting  be  made  ?  With  which  side  shall  go 
this  child,  and  who  shall  remain  in  possession  of  that  pleas- 
ant homestead  ?  Putting  secession  aside,  there  w^ere  in  the 
United  States  two  distinct  political  doctrines,  of  which  the 
extremes  were  opposed  to  each  other  as  pole  is  opposed  to 
pole.  We  have  no  such  variance  of  creed,  no  such  radical 
difference  as  to  the  essential  rules  of  life  between  parties  in 
our  country.  We  have  no  such  cause  for  personal  rancor 
in  our  Parliament  as  has  existed  for  some  years  past  in 
both  Houses  of  Congress.  These  two  extreme  parties  were 
the  slaveowners  of  the  South  and  the  abolitionists  of  the 
North  and  West.  Fifty  years  ago  the  former  regarded  the 
institution  of  slavery  as  a  necessity  of  their  position — gen- 
erally as  an  evil  necessity,  and  generally  also  as  a  custom  to 
be  removed  in  the  course  of  years.  Gradually  they  have 
learned  to  look  upon  slavery  as  good  in  itself,  and  to  be- 
lieve that  it  has  been  the  source  of  their  wealth  and  the 
strength  of  their  position.  They  have  declared  it  to  be  a 
blessing  inalienable,  that  should  remain  among  them  forever 
as  an  inheritance  not  to  be  touched  and  not  to  be  spoken 
of  with  hard  words.  Fifty  years  ago  the  abolitionists  of 
the  North  differed  only  in  opinion  from  the  slave  owners  of 
the  South  in  hoping  for  a  speedier  end  to  this  stain  upon 
the  nation,  and  in  thinking  that  some  action  should  be  taken 
toward  the  final  emancipation  of  the  bondsmen.  But  they 
also  have  progressed  ;  and,  as  the  Southern  masters  have 
called  the  institution  blessed,  they  have  called  it  accursed. 
Their  numbers  have  increased,  and  with  their  numbers  their 
power  and  their  violence.  In  this  w^ay  two  parties  have 
been  formed  who  could  not  look  on  each  other  without  ha- 
tred. An  intermediate  doctrine  has  been  held  by  men  who 
were  nearer  in  their  sympathies  to  the  slaveowners  than  to 
the  abolitionists,  but  who  were  not  disposed  to  justify  sla- 
very as  a  thing  apart.    These  men  have  been  aware  that 


84 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


slavery  has  existed  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution  of 
their  country,  and  have  been  willing  to  attach  the  stain 
which  accompanies  the  institution  to  the  individual  State 
which  entertains  it,  and  not  to  the  national  government  by 
which  the  question  has  been  constitutionally  ignored.  The 
men  who  have  participated  in  the  government  have  natu- 
rally been  inclined  toward  the  middle  doctrine  ;  but  as  the 
two  extremes  have  retreated  farther  from  each  other,  the 
power  of  this  middle  class  of  politicians  has  decreased.  Mr. 
Lincoln,  though  he  does  not  now  declare  himself  an  abo- 
litionist, was  elected  by  the  abolitionists ;  and  when,  as  a 
consequence  of  that  election,  secession  was  threatened,  no 
step  which  he  could  have  taken  would  have  satisfied  the 
South  which  had  opposed  him,  and  been  at  the  same  time 
true  to  the  North  which  had  chosen  him.  But  it  was  pos- 
sible that  his  government  might  save  Maryland,  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri.  As  Radicals  in  England  become 
simple  Whigs  when  they  are  admitted  into  public  offices,  so 
did  Mr.  Lincoln  with  his  government  become  anti-abolition- 
ist when  he  entered  on  his  functions.  Had  he  combated 
secession  with  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  no  slave  State 
would  or  could  ha^e  held  by  the  Union.  Abolition  for  a 
lecturer  may  be  a  telling  subject.  It  is  easy  to  bring  down 
rounds  of  applause  by  tales  of  the  wrongs  of  bondage. 
But  to  men  in  office  abolition  was  too  stern  a  reality.  It 
signified  servile  insurrection,  absolute  ruin  to  all  Southern 
slaveowners,  and  the  absolute  enmity  of  every  slave  State. 

But  that  task  of  steering  between  the  two  has  been  very 
difficult.  I  fear  that  the  task  of  so  steering  with  success  is 
almost  impossible.  In  England  it  is  thought  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln might  have  maintained  the  Union  by  compromising 
matters  with  the  South — or,  if  not  so,  that  he  might  have 
maintained  peace  by  yielding  to  the  South.  But  no  such 
power  was  in  his  hands.  While  we  were  blaming  him  for 
opposition  to  all  Southern  terms,  his  own  friends  in  the 
North  were  saying  that  all  principle  and  truth  was  aban- 
doned for  the  sake  of  such  States  as  Kentucky  and  Missouri. 
"Yirginia  is  gone;  Maryland  cannot  go.  And  slavery  is 
endured,  and  the  new  virtue  of  Washington  is  made  to  tam- 
per with  the  evil  one,  in  order  that  a  show  of  loyalty  may  be 
preserved  in  one  or  two  States  which,  after  all,  are  not  truly 
loyal!"  That  is  the  accusation  made  against  the  govern- 
ment by  the  abolitionists  5  and  that  made  by  us,  on  the  other 


LEXINGTON. 


85 


side,  is  the  reverse.  I  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no 
alternative  but  to  fight,  and  that  he  was  right  also  not  to 
fight  with  abolition  as  his  battle-cry.  That  he  may  be 
forced  by  his  own  friends  into  that  cry,  is,  I  fear,  still  pos- 
sible. Kentucky,  at  any  rate,  did  not  secede  in  bulk.  She 
still  sent  her  Senators  to  Congress,  and  allowed  herself  to 
be  reckoned  among  the  stars  in  the  American  firmament. 
But  she  could  not  escape  the  presence  of  the  war.  Di{l  she 
remain  loyal,  or  did  she  secede,  that  was  equally  her  fate. 

The  day  before  I  entered  Kentucky  a  battle  was  fought 
in  that  State,  which  gave  to  the  Northern  arms  their  first 
actual  victory.  It  was  at  a  place  called  Mill  Spring,  near 
Somerset,  toward  the  south  of  the  State.  General  Zolli- 
coflfer,  with  a  Confederate  army  numbering,  it  was  supposed, 
some  eight  thousand  men,  had  advanced  upon  a  smaller 
Federal  force,  commanded  by  General  Thomas,  and  had 
been  himself  killed,  while  his  army  was  cut  to  pieces  and 
dispersed;  the  cannon  of  the  Confederates  were  taken,  and 
their  camp  seized  and  destroyed.  Their  rout  was  complete ; 
but  in  this  instance  again  the  advancing  party  had  been 
beaten,  as  had,  I  believe,  been  the  case  in  all  the  actions 
hitherto  fought  throughout  the  war.  Here,  however,  had 
been  an  actual  victory,  and  it  was  not  surprising  that  in 
Kentucky  loyal  men  should  rejoice  greatly,  and  begin  to 
hope  that  the  Confederates  would  be  beaten  out  of  the 
State.  Unfortunately,  however,  General  Zollicoffer's  army 
had  only  been  an  offshoot  from  the  main  rebel  army  in  Ken- 
tucky. Buell,  commanding  the  Federal  troops  at  Louis- 
ville, and  Sydney  Johnston,  the  Confederate  general,  at 
Bowling  Green,  as  yet  remained  opposite  to  each  other, 
and  the  work  was  still  to  be  done. 

I  visited  the  little  towns  of  Lexington  and  Frankfort,  in 
Kentucky.  At  the  former  I  found  in  the  hotel  to  which  I 
went  seventy-five  teamsters  belonging  to  the  army.  They 
were  hanging  about  the  great  hall  when  I  entered,  and 
clustering  round  the  stove  in  the  middle  of  the  chamber ;  a 
dirty,  rough,  quaint  set  of  men,  clothed  in  a  wonderful 
variety  of  garbs,  but  not  disorderly  or  loud.  The  land- 
lord apologized  for  their  presence,  alleging  that  other 
accommodation  could  not  be  found  for  them  in  the  town. 
He  received,  he  said,  a  dollar  a  day  for  feeding  them,  and 
for  supplying  them  with  a  place  in  which  they  could  lie 
down.  It  did  not  pay  him,  but  what  could  he  do  ?  Such 
VOL.  IL — 8 


8B 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


an  apology  from  an  American  landlord  was  in  itself  a  sur- 
prising fact.  Such  high  functionaries  are,  as  a  rule,  men 
inclined  to  tell  a  traveler  that  if  he  does  not  like  the  guests 
among  whom  he  finds  himself,  he  may  go  elsewhere.  But 
this  landlord  had  as  yet  filled  the  place  for  not  more  than 
two  or  three  weeks,  and  was' unused  to  the  dignity  of  his 
position.  While  I  was  at  supper,  the  seventy-five  teamsters 
were  summoned  into  the  common  eating-room  by  a  loud 
gong,  and  sat  down  to  their  meal  at  the  public  table.  They 
were  very  dirty ;  I  doubt  whether  I  ever  saw  dirtier  men ; 
but  they  were  orderly  and  well  behaved,  and  but  for  their 
extreme  dirt  might  have  passed  as  the  ordinary  occupants 
of  a  well-filled  hotel  in  the  West.  Such  men,  in  the  States, 
are  less  clumsy  with  their  knives  and  forks,  less  astray  in 
an  unused  position,  more  intelligent  in  adapting  themselves 
to  a  new  life  than  are  Englishmen  of  the  same  rank.  It  is 
always  the  same  story.  With  us  there  is  no  level  of  society. 
Men  stand  on  a  long  staircase,  but  the  crowd  congregates 
near  the  bottom,  and  the  lower  steps  are  very  broad.  In 
America  men  stand  upon  a  common  platform,  but  the  plat- 
form is  raised  above  the  ground,  though  it  does  not  ap- 
proach in  height  the  top  of  our  staircase.  If  we  take  the 
average  altitude  in  the  two  countries,  we  shall  find  that  the 
American  heads  are  the  more  elevated  of  the  two.  I  con- 
ceived rather  an  afi'ection  for  those  dirty  teamsters ;  they 
answered  me  civilly  when  I  spoke  to  them,  and  sat  in  quiet- 
ness, smoking  their  pipes,  with  a  dull  and  dirty  but  orderly 
demeanor. 

The  country  about  Lexington  is  called  the  Blue  Grass 
Region,  and  boasts  itself  as  of  peculiar  fecundity  in  the 
matter  of  pasturage.  Why  the  grass  is  called  blue,  or 
in  what  way  or  at  what  period  it  becomes  blue,  I  did  not 
learn;  but  the  country  is  very  lovely  and  very  fertile.  Be- 
tween Lexington  and  Frankfort  a  large  stock  farm,  extend- 
ing over  three  thousand  acres,  is  kept  by  a  gentleman  who 
is  very  well  known  as  a  breeder  of  horses,  cattle,  and  sheep. 
He  has  spent  much  money  on  it,  and  is  making  for  himself 
a  Kentucky  elysium.  He  was  kind  enough  to  entertain  me 
for  awhile,  and  showed  me  something  of  country  life  in 
Kentucky.  A  farm  in  that  part  of  the  State  depends,  and 
must  depend,  chiefly  on  slave  labor.  The  slaves  are  a 
material  part  of  the  estate,  and  as  they  are  regarded  by 
the  law  as  real  property — being  actually  adstricti  glehae — 


KENTUCKY  SLAVES. 


81 


an  inheritor  of  land  has  no  alternative  but  to  keep  them. 

A  gentleman  in  Kentucky  docs  not  sell  his  slaves.  To  do 
so  is  considered  to  be  low  and  mean,  and  is  opposed  to  the 
aristocratic  traditions  of  the  country.  A  man  who  does  so 
willingly,  puts  himself  beyond  the  pale  of  good  fellowship 
with  his  neighbors.  A  sale  of  slaves  is  regarded  as  a  sign 
almost  of  bankruptcy.  If  a  man  cannot  pay  his  debts,  his 
creditors  can  step  in  and  sell  his  slaves;  but  he  does  not 
himself  make  the  sale.  When  a  man  owns  more  slaves  than 
he  needs,  he  hires  them  out  by  the  year;  and  when' he  re- 
quires more  than  he  owns,  he  takes  them  on  hire  by  the 
year.  Care  is  taken  in  such  hirings  not  to  remove  a  mar- 
ried man  away  from  his  home.  The  price  paid  for  a  negro's 
labor  at  the  time  of  my  visit  was  about  a  hundred  dollars, 
or  twenty  pounds  for  the  year;  but  this  price  was  then  ex- 
tremely low  in  consequence  of  the  war  disturbances.  The 
usual  price  had  been  about  fifty  or  sixty  per  cent,  above 
this.  The  man  who  takes  the  negro  on  hire  feeds  him, 
clothes  him,  provides  him  with  a  bed,  and  supplies  him  with 
medical  attendance.  I  went  into  some  of  their  cottages  on 
the  estate  which  I  visited,  and  was  not  in  the  least  sur- 
prised to  find  them  preferable  in  size,  furniture,  and  all 
material  comforts  to  the  dwellings  of  most  of  our  own  agri- 
cultural laborers.  Any  comparison  between  the  material 
comfort  of  a  Kentucky  slave  and  an  English  ditcher  and 
delver  would  be  preposterous.  The  Kentucky  slave  never 
wants  for  clothing  fitted  to  the  weather.  He  eats  meat 
twice  a  day,  and  has  three  good  meals;  he  knows  no  limit 
but  his  own  appetite;  his  work  is  light;  he  has  many  va- 
rieties of  amusement;  he  has  instant  medical  assistance  at 
all  periods  of  necessity  for  himself,  his  wife,  and  his  chil- 
dren. Of  course  he  pays  no  rent,  fears  no  baker,  and 
knows  no  hunger.  I  would  not  have  it  supposed  that  I 
conceive  slavery  with  all  these  comforts  to  be  equal  to  free- 
dom without  them ;  nor  do  I  conceive  that  the  negro  can 
be  made  equal  to  the  white  man.  But  in  discussing  the 
condition  of  the  negro,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  under- 
stand what  are  the  advantages  of  which  abolition  would 
deprive  him,  and  in  what  condition  he  has  been  placed  by 
the  daily  receipt  of  such  advantages.  If  a  negro  slave 
wants  new  shoes,  he  asks  for  them,  and  receives  them,  with 
the  undoubting  simplicity  of  a  child.  Such  a  stat«  of 
things  has  its  picturesquely  patriarchal  side;   but  what 


88 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


would  be  the  state  of  such  a  man  if  he  were  emancipated 
to-morrow  ? 

The  natural  beauty  of  the  place  which  I  was  visiting  was 
very  great.  The  trees  were  fine  and  well  scattered  over 
the  large,  park-like  pastures,  and  the  ground  was.  broken 
on  every  side  into  hills.  There  was  perhaps  too  much  tim- 
ber, but  my  friend  seemed  to  think  that  that  fault  would 
find  a  natural  remedy  only  too  quickly.  "I  do  not  like  to 
cut  down  trees  if  I  can  help  it,"  he  said.  After  that  I  need 
not  say  that  my  host  was  quite  as  much  an  Englishman  as 
an  American.  To  the  purely  American  farmer  a  tree  is 
simply  an  enemy  to  be  trodden  under  foot,  and  buried  under- 
ground, or  reduced  to  ashes  and  thrown  to  the  winds  with 
what  most  economical  dispatch  may  be  possible.  If  water 
had  been  added  to  the  landscape  here  it  would  have  been 
perfect,  regarding  it  as  ordinary  English  park-scenery. 
But  the  little  rivers  at  this  place  have  a  dirty  trick  of  bury- 
ing themselves  under  the  ground.  They  go  down  suddenly 
into  holes,  disappearing  from  the  upper  air,  and  then  come 
up  again  at  the  distance  of  perhaps  half  a  mile.  Unfortu- 
nately their  periods  of  seclusion  are  more  prolonged  than 
those  of  their  upper-air  distance.  There  were  three  or  four 
such  ascents  and  descents  about  the  place. 

My  host  was  a  breeder  of  race-horses,  and  had  imported 
sires  from  England;  of  sheep  also,  and  had  imported  famous 
rams  ;  of  cattle  too,  and  was  great  in  bulls.  He  was  very 
loud  in  praise  of  Kentucky  and  its  attractions,  if  only 
this  war  could  be  brought  to  an  end.  But  I  could  not 
obtain  from  him  an  assurance  that  the  speculation  in  which 
he  was  engaged  had  been  profitable.  Ornamental  farming 
in  England  is  a  very  pretty  amusement  for  a  wealthy  man, 
but  I  fancy — without  intending  any  slight  on  Mr.  Mechi — ■ 
that  the  amusement  is  expensive.  I  believe  that  the  same 
thing  may  be  said  of  it  in  a  slave  State. 

Frankfort  is  the  capital  of  Kentucky,  and  is  as  quietly 
dull  a  little  town  as  I  ever  entered.  It  is  on  the  River 
Kentucky,  and  as  the  grounds  about  it  on  every  side  rise  in 
wooded  hills,  it  is  a  very  pretty  place.  In  January  it  was 
very  pretty,  but  in  summer  it  must  be  lovely.  I  was  taken 
up  to  the  cemetery  there  by  a  path  along  the  river,  and  am 
inclined  to  say  that  it  is  the  sweetest  resting-place  for  the 
dead  that  I  have  ever  visited.  Daniel  Boone  lies  there. 
He  was  the  first  white  man  who  settled  in  Kentucky;  or 


FLOOD  ON  THE  OHIO. 


89 


rather,  perhaps,  the  first  who  entered  Kentucky  with  a  view 
to  a  white  man's  settlement.  Such  frontier  men  as  was 
Daniel  Boone  never  remained  long  contented  with  the  spots 
they  opened.  As  soon  as  he  had  left  his  mark  in  that  ter- 
ritory he  went  again  farther  west,  over  the  big  rivers  into 
Missouri,  and  there  he  died.  But  the  men  of  Kentucky  are 
proud  of  Daniel  Boone,  and  so  they  have  buried  him  in  the 
loveliest  spot  they  could  select,  immediately  over  the  river. 
Frankfort  is  worth  a  visit,  if  only  that  this  grave  and  grave- 
yard may  be  seen.  The  legislature  of  the  State  was  not 
sitting  when  I  was  there,  and  the  grass  was  growing  in  the 
streets. 

Louisville  is  the  commercial  city  of  the  State,  and  stands 
on  the  Ohio.  It  is  another  great  town,  like  all  the  others, 
built  with  high  stores,  and  great  houses  and  stone-faced 
blocks.  I  have  no  doubt  that  all  the  building  speculations 
have  been  failures,  and  that  the  men  engaged  in  them  were 
all  ruined.  But  there,  as  the  result  of  their  labor,  stands  a 
fair  great  city  on  the  southern  banks  of  the  Ohio.  Here 
General  Buell  held  his  headquarters,  but  his  array  lay  at  a 
distance.  On  my  return  from  the  West  I  visited  one  of 
the  camps  of  this  army,  and  will  speak  of  it  as  I  speak  of 
my  backward  journey.  I  had  already  at  this  time  begun 
to  conceive  an  opinion  that  the  armies  in  Kentucky  and  in 
Missouri  would  do  at  any  rate  as  much  for  the  xvorthern 
cause  as  that  of  the  Potomac,  of  which  so  much  more  had 
been  heard  in  England. 

While  I  was  at  Louisville  the  Ohio  was  flooded.  It  had 
begun  to  rise  when  I  was  at  Cincinnati,  and  since  then  had 
gone  on  increasing  hourly,  rising  inch  by  inch  up  into  the 
towns  upon  its  bank.  I  visited  two  suburbs  of  Louisville, 
both  of  which  were  submerged,  as  to  the  streets  and  ground 
floors  of  the  houses.  At  Shipping  Port,  one  of  these 
suburbs,  I  saw  the  women  and  children  clustering  in  the 
up- stairs  room,  while  the  men  were  going  about  in  punts 
and  wherries,  collecting  drift-wood  from  the  river  for  their 
winter's  firing.  In  some  places  bedding  and  furniture  had 
been  brought  over  to  the  high  ground,  and  the  women  were 
sitting,  guarding  their  little  property.  That  village,  amid 
the  waters,  was  a  sad  sight  to  see;  but  I  heard  no  com- 
plaints. There  was  no  tearing  of  hair  and  no  gnashing  of 
teeth;  no  bitter  tears  or  moans  of  sorrow.  The  men  who 
were  not  at  work  in  the  boats  stood  loafing  about  in  clus- 
YOL.  II.— 8* 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ters,  looking  at  the  still  rising  river,  but  each  seemed  to  be 
personally  indifferent  to  the  matter.  When  tlie  house  of 
an  American  is  carried  down  the  river,  he  builds  himself 
another,  as  he  would  get  himself  a  new  coat  when  his  old 
coat  became  unserviceable.  But  he  never  laments  or  moans 
for  such  a  loss.  Surely  there  is  no  other  people  so  passive 
under  personal  misfortune ! 

Going  from  Louisville  up  to  St.  Louis,  I  crossed  the 
Ohio  River  and  passed  through  parts  of  Indiana  and  of 
Illinois,  and,  striking  the  Mississippi  opposite  St.  Louis, 
crossed  that  river  also,  and  then  entered  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri. The  Ohio  was,  as  I  have  said,  flooded,  and  we  went 
over  it  at  night.  The  boat  had  been  moored  at  some  un- 
accustomed place.  There  was  no  light.  The  road  was 
deep  in  mud  up  to  the  axle-tree,  and  was  crowded  with 
wagons  and  carts,  which  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  seemed 
to  have  stuck  there.  But  the  man  drove  his  four  horses 
through  it  all,  and  into  the  ferry-boat,  over  its  side.  There 
were  three  or  four  such  omnibuses,  and  as  many  wagons, 
as  to  each  of  which  I  predicted  in  my  own  mind  some  fatal 
catastrophe.  But  they  were  all  driven  on  to  the  boat  in 
the  dark,  the  horses  mixing  in  through  each  other  in  a 
chaos  which  would  have  altogether  incapacitated  any  Eng- 
lish coachman.  And  then  the  vessel  labored  across  the 
flood,  going  sideways,  and  hardly  keeping  her  own  against 
the  stream.  But  we  did  get  over,  and  were  all  driven  out 
again,  up  to  the  railway  station  in  safety.  On  reaching 
the  Mississippi  about  the  middle  of  the  next  day,  we  found 
it  frozen  over,  or  rather  covered  from  side  to  side  with 
blocks  of  ice  which  had  forced  their  way  down  the  river,  so 
that  the  steam-ferry  could  not  reach  its  proper  landing.  I 
do  not  think  that  we  in  England  would  have  attempted  the 
feat  of  carrying  over  horses  and  carriages  under  stress  of 
such  circumstances.  But  it  was  done  here.  Huge  plank- 
ings were  laid  down  over  the  ice,  and  omnibuses  and  wagons 
were  driven  on.  In  getting  out  again,  these  vehicles,  each 
with  four  horses,  had  to  be  twisted  about,  and  driven  in 
and  across  the  vessel,  and  turned  in  spaces  to  look  at  which 
would  have  broken  the  heart  of  an  English  coachman.  And 
then  with  a  spring  they  were  driven  up  a  bank  as  steep  as 
a  ladder  I  Ah  me  1  under  what  mistaken  illusions  have  I 
not  labored  all  the  days  of  my  youth,  in  supposing  that  no 
man  could  drive  four  horses  well  but  an  English  stage- 


MISSOURI.  91 

coachman  I  I  liave  seen  performances  in  America — and  in 
Italy  and  France  also,  but  above  all  in  America — which 
would  have  made  the  hair  of  any  English  professional  driver 
stand  on  end. 

And  in  this  way  I  entered  St.  Louis. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

MISSOURI. 

Missouri  is  a  slave  State,  lying  to  the  west  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  to  the  north  of  Arkansas.  It  forms  a  portion 
of  the  territory  ceded  by  France  to  the  United  States  in 
1803.  Indeed,  it  is  difiicult  to  say  how  large  a  portion  of 
the  continent  of  North  America  is  supposed  to  be  included 
in  that  territory.  It  contains  the  States  of  Louisiana,  Ar- 
kansas, Missouri,  and  Kansas,  as  also  the  present  Indian 
Territory;  but  it  also  is  said  to  have  contained  all  the  land 
lying  back  from  them  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  Utah,  Ne- 
braska, and  Dakota,  and  forms  no  doubt  the  widest  domin- 
ion ever  ceded  by  one  nationality  to  another. 

Missouri  lies  exactly  north  of  the  old  Missouri  compro- 
mise line — that  is,  36-30  north.  When  the  Missouri  com- 
promise was  made  it  was  arranged  that  Missouri  should  be 
a  slave  State,  but  that  no  other  State  north  of  the  36-30 
line  should  ever  become  slave  soil.  Kentucky  and  Virginia, 
as  also  of  course  Maryland  and  Delaware,  four  of  the  old 
slave  States,  were  already  north  of  that  line;  but  the  com- 
promise was  intended  to  prevent  the  advance  of  slavery  in 
the  Northwest.  The  compromise  has  been  since  annulled, 
on  the  ground,  I  believe,  that  Congress  had  not  constitu- 
tionally the  power  to  declare  that  any  soil  should  be  free,  or 
that  any  should  be  slave  soil.  That  is  a  question  to  be 
decided  by  the  States  themselves,  as  each  individual  State 
may  please.  So  the  compromise  was  repealed.  But  slavery 
has  not  on  that  account  advanced.  The  battle  has  been 
fought  in  Kansas,  and,  after  a  long  and  terrible  struggle, 
Kansas  has  come  out  of  the  fight  as  a  free  State.  Kansas 


92 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


is  in  the  same  parallel  of  latitude  as  Tirginia.  and  stretches 
west  as  far  as  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

When  the  census  of  the  population  of  Missouri  was  taken 
in  1860,  the  slaves  amounted  to  ten  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
number.  In  the  Gulf  States  the  slave  population  is  about 
forty-five  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  In  the  three  border 
States  of  Kentucky,  Virginia,  and  Maryland,  the  slaves 
amount  to  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population.  From 
these  figures  it  will  be  seen  that  Missouri,  which  is  compar- 
atively a  new  slave  State,  has  not  gone  ahead  with  slavery 
as  the  old  slave  States  have  done,  although  from  its  position 
and  climate,  lying  as  far  south  as  Virginia,  it  might  seem  to 
have  had  the  same  reasons  for  doing  so.  I  think  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  slavery  will  die  out  in  Missouri. 
The  institution  is  not  popular  with  the  people  generally; 
and  as  white  labor  becomes  abundant — and  before  the  war 
it  was  becoming  abundant — men  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
white  man's  labor  is  the  more  profitable.  The  heat  in  this 
State,  in  midsummer,  is  very  great,  especially  in  the  valleys 
of  the  rivers.  At  St.  Louis,  on  the  Mississippi,  it  reaches 
commonly  to  ninety  degrees,  and  very  frequently  goes  above 
that.  The  nights,  moreover,  are  nearly  as  hot  as  the  days; 
but  this  great  heat  does  not  last  for  any  very  long  period, 
and  it  seems  that  white  men  are  able  to  work  throughout 
the  year.  If  correspondingly  severe  weather  in  winter  af- 
fords any  compensation  to  the  white  man  for  what  of  heat 
he  endures  during  the  summer,  I  can  testify  that  such  com- 
pensation is  to  be  found  in  Missouri.  When  I  was  there 
we  were  afilicted  with  a  combination  of  snow,  sleet,  frost, 
and  wind,  with  a  mixture  of  ice  and  mud,  that  makes  me 
regard  Missouri  as  the  most  inclement  land  into  which  I 
ever  penetrated. 

St.  Louis,  on  the  Mississippi,  is  the  great  town  of  Mis- 
souri, and  is  considered  by  the  Missourians  to  be  the  star 
of  the  West.  It  is  not  to  be  beaten  in  population,  wealth, 
or  natural  advantages  by  any  other  city  so  far  west;  but  it 
has  not  increased  with  such  rapidity  as  Chicago,  which  is 
considerably  to  the  north  of  it,  on  Lake  Michigan.  Of  the 
great  Western  cities  I  regard  Chicago  as  the  most  remark- 
able, seeing  that  St.  Louis  was  a  large  town  before  Chicago 
had  been  founded. 

The  population  of  St.  Louis  is  170,000.  Of  this  num- 
ber only  2000  are  slaves.    I  was  told  that  a  large  proportion 


ST.  LOUIS. 


of  the  slaves  of  Missouri  are  employed  near  the  Missouri 
River  in  breaking  hemp.  The  growth  of  hemp  is  very  prof- 
itably carried  on  in  that  valley,  and  the  labor  attached  to  it 
is  one  which  wliite  men  do  not  like  to  encounter.  Slaves 
are  not  generally  employed  in  St.  Louis  for  domestic  serv- 
ice, as  is  done  almost  universally  in  the  towns  of  Kentucky. 
This  work  is  chiefly  in  the  hands  of  Irish  and  Germans. 
Considerably  above  one-third  of  the  population  of  the 
whole  city  is  made  up  of  these  two  nationalities.  So  much 
is  confessed;  but  if  I  were  to  form  an  opinion  from  the 
language  I  heard  in  the  streets  of  the  town,  I  should  say 
that  nearly  every  man  was  either  an  Irishman  or  a  Ger- 
man. 

St,  Louis  has  none  of  the  aspects  of  a  slave  city.  I 
cannot  say  that  I  found  it  an  attractive  place ;  but  then  I 
did  not  visit  it  at  an  attractive  time.  The  w^ar  had  dis- 
turbed everything,  given  a  special  color  of  its  own  to  men's 
thoughts  and  words,  and  destroyed  all  interest  except  that 
which  might  proceed  from  itself.  The  town  is  well  built, 
with  good  shops,  straight  streets,  never-ending  rows  of  ex- 
cellent houses,  and  every  sign  of  commercial  w^ealth  and 
domestic  comfort — of  commercial  wealth  and  domestic  com- 
fort in  the  past,  for  there  was  no  present  appearance  either 
of  comfort  or  of  wealth.  The  new  hotel  here  was  to  be 
bigger  than  all  the  hotels  of  all  other  towns.  It  is  built, 
and  is  an  enormous  pile,  and  would  be  handsome  but  for  a 
terribly  ambitious  Grecian  doorway.  It  is  built,  as  far  as 
the  walls  and  roof  are  concerned,  but  in  all  other  respects 
is  unfinished.  I  was  told  that  the  shares  of  the  original 
stockholders  were  now  worth  nothing.  A  shareholder,  who 
so  told  me,  seemed  to  regard  this  as  the  ordinary  course  of 
business. 

The  great  glory  of  the  town  is  the  "levee,"  as  it  is  called, 
or  the  long  river  beach  up  to  which  the  steamers  are  brought 
with  their  bows  to  the  shore.  It  is  an  esplanade  looking 
on  to  the  river,  not  built  with  quays  or  wharves,  as  would 
be  the  case  with  us,  but  with  a  sloping  bank  running  down 
to  the  water.  In  the  good  days  of  peace  a  hundred  vessels 
were  to  be  seen  here,  each  with  its  double  funnels.  The 
line  of  them  seemed  to  be  never  ending  even  when  I  was 
there,  but  then  a  very  large  proportion  of  them  were  lying 
idle.  They  resemble  huge,  wooden  houses,  apparently  of 
frail  architecture,  floating  upon  the  water.    Each  has  its 


n 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


double  row  of  balconies  running  round  it,  and  the  lower  or 
ground  floor  is  open  throughout.  The  upper  stories  are 
propped  and  supported  on  ugly  sticks  and  rickety-looking 
beams ;  so  that  the  first  appearance  does  not  convey  any 
great  idea  of  security  to  a  stranger.  They  are  always 
painted  white,  and  the  paint  is  always  very  dirty.  When 
they  begin  to  move,  they  moan  and  groan  in  melancholy 
tones  which  are  subversive  of  all  comfort;  and  as  they  con- 
tinue on  their  courses  they  puff  and  bluster,  and  are  forever 
threatening  to  burst  and  shatter  themselves  to  pieces. 
There  they  lie,  in  a  continuous  line  nearly  a  mile  in  length, 
along  the  levee  of  St,  Louis,  dirty,  dingy,  and  now,  alas  ! 
mute.  They  have  ceased  to  groan  and  puff,  and,  if  this 
war  be  continued  for  six  months  longer,  will  become  rotten 
and  useless  as  they  lie. 

They  boast  at  St.  Louis  that  they  command  46,000  miles 
of  navigable  river  water,  counting  the  great  rivers  up  and 
down  from  that  place.  These  rivers  are  chiefly  the  Missis- 
sippi ;  the  Missouri  and  Ohio,  which  fall  into  the  Mississippi 
near  St.  Louis ;  the  Platte  and  Kansas  Rivers,  tributaries  of 
the  Missouri;  the  Illinois,  and  the  Wisconsin.  All  these 
are  open  to  steamers,  and  all  of  them  traverse  regions  rich 
in  corn,  in  coal,  in  metals,  or  in  timber.  These  ready-made 
highways  of  the  world  center,  as  it  were,  at  St.  Louis,  and 
make  it  the  depot  of  the  carrying  trade  of  all  that  vast 
country.  Minnesota  is  1500  miles  above  New  Orleans,  but 
the  wheat  of  Minnesota  can  be  brought  down  the  whole  dis- 
tance without  change  of  the  vessel  in  which  it  is  first  de- 
posited. It  would  seem  to  be  impossible  that  a  country  so 
blessed  should  not  become  rich.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  these  rivers  flow  through  lands  that  have  never  yet  been 
surpassed  in  natural  fertility.  Of  all  countries  in  the  world 
one  would  say  that  the  States  of  America  should  have  been 
the  last  to  curse  themselves  with  a  war ;  but  now  the  curse 
has  fallen  upon  them  with  a  double  vengeance.  It  would 
seem  that  they  could  never  be  great  in  war :  their  very  in- 
stitutions forbid  it ;  their  enormous  distances  forbid  it ;  the 
price  of  labor  forbids  it ;  and  it  is  forbidden  also  by  the 
career  of  industry  and  expansion  which  has  been  given  to 
them.  But  the  curse  of  fighting  has  come  upon  them,  and 
they  are  showing  themselves  to  be  as  eager  in  the  works  of 
war  as  they  have  shown  themselves  capable  in  the  works  of 
peace.     Men  and  angels  must  weep  as  they  behold  the 


THE  WAR  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES. 


95 


things  that  are  being  done,  as  they  watch  the  ruin  that  has 
come  and  is  still  coming,  as  they  look  on  commerce  killed 
and  agriculture  suspended.  No  sight  so  sad  has  come  upon 
the  earth  in  our  days.  They  were  a  great  people ;  feeding 
the  world,  adding  daily  to  the  mechanical  appliances  of 
mankind,  increasing  in  population  beyond  all  measures  of 
such  increase  hitherto  known,  and  extending  education  as 
fast  as  they  extended  their  numbers.  Poverty  had  as  yet 
found  no  place  among  them,  and  hunger  was  an  evil  of 
which  they  had  read  but  were  themselves  ignorant.  Each 
man  among  their  crowds  had  a  right  to  be  proud  of  his 
manhood.  To  read  and  write — I  am  speaking  here  of  the 
North — was  as  common  as  to  eat  and  drink.  To  work  was 
no  disgrace,  and  the  wages  of  work  were  plentiful.  To  live 
without  work  was  the  lot  of  none.  What  blessing  above 
these  blessings  was  needed  to  make  a  people  great  and 
happy  ?  And  now  a  stranger  visiting  them  would  declare 
that  they  are  wallowing  in  a  very  slough  of  despond.  The 
only  trade  open  is  the  trade  of  war.  The  axe  of  the  woods- 
man is  at  rest;  the  plow  is  idle;  the  artificer  has  closed 
his  shop.  The  roar  of  the  foundery  is  still  heard  because 
cannon  are  needed,  and  the  river  of  molten  iron  comes  out 
as  an  implement  of  death.  The  stone-cutter's  hammer  and 
the  mason's  trowel  are  never  heard.  The  gold  of  the  country 
is  hiding  itself  as  though  it  had  returned  to  its  mother  earth, 
and  the  infancy  of  a  paper  currency  has  been  commenced. 
Sick  soldiers,  who  have  never  seen  a  battle-field,  are  dying 
by  hundreds  in  the  squalid  dirt  of  their  unaccustomed  camps. 
Men  and  women  talk  of  war,  and  of  war  only.  Newspapers 
full  of  the  war  are  alone  read.  A  contract  for  war  stores — 
too  often  a  dishonest  contract  —  is  the  one  path  open  for 
commercial  enterprise.  The  young  man  must  go  to  the  war 
or  he  is  disgraced.  The  war  swallows  everything,  and  as 
yet  has  failed  to  produce  even  such  bitter  fruits  as  victory 
or  glory.  Must  it  not  be  said  that  a  curse  has  fallen  upon 
the  land  ? 

And  yet  I  still  hope  that  it  may  ultimately  be  for  good. 
Through  water  and  fire  must  a  nation  be  cleansed  of  its 
faults.  It  has  been  so  with  all  nations,  though  the  phases  of 
their  trials  have  been  different.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  well 
with  us  in  Cromwell's  early  days  ;  nor  was  it  well  with  us  after- 
ward in  those  disgraceful  years  of  the  later  Stuarts.  We 
know  how  France  was  bathed  in  blood  in  her  effort  to  rid 


96 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


herself  of  her  painted  sepulcher  of  an  ancient  throne ;  how 
Germany  was  made  desolate,  in  order  that  Prussia  might 
become  a  nation.  Ireland  was  poor  and  wretched  till  her 
famine  came.  Men  said  it  was  a  curse,  but  that  curse  has 
been  her  greatest  blessing.  And  so  will  it  be  here  in  the 
West.  I  could  not  but  weep  in  spirit  as  I  saw  the  wretched- 
ness around  me — the  squalid  misery  of  the  soldiers,  the  in- 
efficiency of  their  officers,  the  bickerings  of  their  rulers,  the 
noise  and  threats,  the  dirt  and  ruin,  the  terrible  dishonesty 
of  those  who  were  trusted  I  These  are  things  which  made 
a  man  wish  that  he  were  anywhere  but  there.  But  I  do 
believe  that  God  is  still  over  all,  and  that  everything  is 
working  for  good.  These  things  are  the  fire  and  water 
through  which  this  nation  must  pass.  The  course  of  this 
people  had  been  too  straight,  and  their  way  had  been  too 
pleasant.  That  which  to  others  had  been  ever  difficult  had 
been  made  easy  for  them.  Bread  and  meat  had  come  to 
them  as  things  of  course,  and  they  hardly  remembered  to 
be  thankful.  ''We,  ourselves,  have  done  it,"  they  declared 
aloud.  "  We  are  not  as  other  men.  We  are  gods  upon 
the  earth.  Whose  arm  shall  be  long  enough  to  stay  us,  or 
whose  bolt  shall  be  strong  enough  to  strike  us  ?" 

Now  they  are  stricken  sore,  and  the  bolt  is  from  their 
own  bow.  Their  own  hands  have  raised  the  barrier  that 
has  stayed  them.  They  have  stumbled  in  their  running,  and 
are  lying  hurt  upon  the  ground ;  while  they  who  have  heard 
their  boastings  turn  upon  them  with  ridicule,  and  laugh  at 
them  in  their  discomforture.  They  are  rolling  in  the  mire, 
and  cannot  take  the  hand  of  any  man  to  help  them.  Though 
the  hand  of  the  by-stander  may  be  stretched  to  them,  his  face 
is  scornful  and  his  voice  full  of  reproaches.  Who  has  not 
known  that  hour  of  misery  when  in  the  sullenness  of  the 
heart  all  help  has  been  refused,  and  misfortune  has  been 
made  welcome  to  do  her  worst  ?  So  is  it  now  with  those 
once  United  States.  The  man  who  can  see  without  inward 
tears  the  self-inflicted  wounds  of  that  American  people  can 
hardly  have  within  his  bosom  the  tenderness  of  an  English- 
man's heart. 

But  the  strong  runner  will  rise  again  to  his  feet,  even 
though  he  be  stunned  by  his  fall.  He  will  rise  again,  and 
will  have  learned  something  by  his  sorrow.  His  anger  will 
pass  away,  and  he  will  again  brace  himself  for  his  work. 
What  great  race  has  ever  been  won  by  any  man,  or  by  any 


GROWTH  OP  THE  STATES. 


91 


nation,  without  some  such  fall  during  its  course  ?  Have  W3 
not  all  declared  that  some  check  to  that  career  was  neces- 
sary? Men  in  their  pursuit  of  intelligence  had  forgotten 
to  be  honest;  in  struggling  for  greatness  they  had  discarded 
purity.  The  nation  has  been  great,  but  the  statesmen  of 
the  nation  have  been  little.  Men  have  hardly  been  ambi- 
tious to  govern,  but  they  have  coveted  the  wages  of  gov- 
ernors. Corruption  has  crept  into  high  places — into  places 
that  should  have  been  high — till  of  all  holes  and  corners  in 
the  land  they  have  become  the  lowest.  'No  public  man  has 
been  trusted  for  ordinary  honesty.  It  is  not  by  foreign 
voices,  by  English  newspapers  or  in  French  pamphlets,  that 
the  corruption  of  American  politicians  has  been  exposed, 
but  by  American  voices  and  by  the  American  press.  It  is 
to  be  heard  on  every  side.  Ministers  of  the  cabinet,  sen- 
ators, representatives,  State  legislatures,  officers  of  the  army, 
officials  of  the  navy,  contractors  of  every  grade  —  all  who 
are  presumed  to  touch,  or  to  have  the  power  of  touching 
public  money,  are  thus  accused.  For  years  it  has  been  so. 
The  word  politician  has  stunk  in  men's  nostrils.  When  I 
first  visited  New  York,  some  three  years  since,  I  was  warned 
not  to  know  a  man,  because  he  was  a  "politician."  We  in 
England  define  a  man  of  a  certain  class  as  a  blackleg.  How 
has  it  come  about  that  in  American  ears  the  word  politician 
has  come  to  bear  a  similar  signification  ? 

The  material  growth  of  the  States  has  been  so  quick  that 
the  political  growth  has  not  been  able  to  keep  pace  with  it. 
In  commerce,  in  education,  in  all  municipal  arrangements, 
in  mechanical  skill,  and  also  in  professional  ability  the  coun- 
try has  stalked  on  with  amazing  rapidity;  but  in  the  art 
of  governing,  in  all  political  management  and  detail,  it  has 
made  no  advance.  The  merchants  of  our  country  and  of 
that  country  have  for  many  years  met  on  terms  of  perfect 
equality ;  but  it  has  never  been  so  with  their  statesmen  and 
our  statesmen,  with  their  diplomatists  and  our  diplomatists. 
Lombard  Street  and  Wall  Street  can  do  business  with  each 
other  on  equal  footing,  but  it  is  not  so  between  Downing 
Street  and  the  State  office  at  Washington.  The  science  of 
statesmanship  has  yet  to  be  learned  in  the  States,  and  cer- 
tainly the  highest  lesson  of  that  science,  which  teaches  that 
honesty  is  the  best  policy. 

I  trust  that  the  war  will  have  left  such  a  lesson  behind  it. 
If  it  do  so,  let  the  cost  in  money  be  what  it  may,  that  money 
VOL.  II. — 9 


9S 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


will  not  have  been  wasted.  If  the  American  people  can 
learn  the  necessity  of  employing  their  best  men  for  their 
highest  work — if  they  can  recognize  these  honest  men,  and 
trust  them  when  they  are  so  recognized — then  they  may  bo- 
come  as  great  in  politics  as  they  have  become  great  in  com- 
merce and  in  social  institutions. 

St.  Louis,  and  indeed  the  whole  State  of  Missouri,  was 
at  the  time  of  my  visit  under  martial  law.  General  Halleck 
was  in  command,  holding  his  headquarters  at  St.  Louis,  and 
carrying  out,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  the  city  was  concerned, 
what  orders  he  chose  to  issue.  I  am  disposed  to  think  that, 
situated  as  Missouri  then  was,  martial  law  was  the  best  law. 
No  other  law  could  have  had  force  in  a  town  surrounded  by 
soldiers,  and  in  which  half  of  the  inhabitants  were  loyal  to 
the  existing  government  and  half  of  them  were  in  favor  of 
rebellion.  The  necessity  for  such  power  is  terrible,  and  the 
power  itself  in  the  hands  of  one  man  must  be  full  of  dan- 
ger;  but  even  that  is  better  than  anarchy.  I  will  not  ac- 
cuse General  Halleck  of  abusing  his  pov/er,  seeing  that  it 
is  hard  to  determine  what  is  the  abuse  of  such  power  and 
what  its  proper  use.  When  we  were  at  St.  Louis  a  tax 
was  being  gathered  of  100/.  a  head  from  certain  men  pre- 
sumed to  be  secessionists ;  and,  as  the  money  was  not  of 
course  very  readily  paid,  the  furniture  of  these  suspected 
secessionists  was  being  sold  by  auction.  No  doubt  such  a 
measure  was  by  them  regarded  as  a  great  abuse.  One  gen- 
tleman informed  me  that,  in  addition  to  this,  certain  houses 
of  his  had  been  taken  by  the  government  at  a  fixed  rent, 
and  that  the  payment  of  the  rent  was  now  refused  unless 
he  would  take  the  oath  of  allegiance.  He  no  doubt  thought 
that  an  abuse  of  power  !  But  the  worst  abuse  of  such  power 
comes  not  at  first,  but  with  long  usage. 

Up  to  the  time,  however,  at  which  I  was  at  St.  Louis, 
martial  law  had  chiefly  been  used  in  closing  grog-shops 
and  administering  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  suspected  seces- 
sionists. Something  also  had  been  done  in  the  way  of  rais- 
ing money  by  selling  the  property  of  convicted  secession- 
ists ;  and  while  I  was  there  eight  men  were  condemned  to 
be  shot  for  destroying  railway  bridges.  "  But  will  they  be 
shot  ?"  I  asked  of  one  of  the  officers.  *'  Oh,  yes.  It  will  be 
done  quietly,  and  no  one  will  know  anything  about  it ;  we 
shall  get  used  to  that  kind  of  thing  presently."  And  the 
inhabitants  of  Missouri  were  becoming  used  to  martial  law. 


HABEAS  CORPUS. 


99 


It  is  surprising  how  quickly  a  people  can  reconcile  them- 
selves to  altered  circumstances,  when  the  change  comes 
upon  them  without  the  necessity  of  any  expressed  opinion 
on  their  own  part.  Personal  freedom  has  been  considered 
as  necessary  to  the  American  of  the  States  as  the  air  he 
breathes.  Had  any  suggestion  been  made  to  him  of  a  sus- 
pension of  the  privilege  of  habeas  corpus,  of  a  censorship 
of  the  press,  or  of  martial  law,  the  American  would  have 
declared  his  willingness  to  die  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  have  proclaimed  with  ten  million  voices 
his  inability  to  live  under  circumstances  so  subversive  of 
his  rights  as  a  man.  And  he  would  have  thoroughly  be- 
lieved the  truth  of  his  own  assertions.  Had  a  chance  been 
given  of  an  argument  on  the  matter,  of  stump  speeches  and 
caucus  meetings,  these  things  could  never  have  been  done. 
But  as  it  is,  Americans  are,  I  think,  rather  proud  of  the 
suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus.  They  point  with  gratifi- 
cation to  the  uniformly  loyal  tone  of  the  newspapers,  re- 
marking that  any  editor  who  should  dare  to  give  even  a 
secession  squeak  would  immediately  find  himself  shut  up. 
And  now  nothing  but  good  is  spoken  of  martial  law.  I 
thought  it  a  nuisance  when  I  was  prevented  by  soldiers 
from  trotting  my  horse  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  Wash- 
ington ;  but  I  was  assured  by  Americans  that  such  restric- 
tions were  very  serviceable  in  a  community.  At  St.  Louis 
martial  law  was  quite  popular.  Why  should  not  General 
Halleck  be  as  well  able  to  say  what  was  good  for  the  peo- 
ple as  any  law  or  any  lawyer  ?  He  had  no  interest  in  the 
injury  of  the  State,  but  every  interest  in  its  preservation. 
"  But  what,"  I  asked,  "  would  be  the  effect  were  he  to  tell 
you  to  put  all  your  fires  out  at  eight  o'clock  ?"  "  If  he 
were  so  to  order,  we  should  do  it ;  but  we  know  that  he 
will  not."  But  who  does  know  to  what  General  Halleck  or 
other  generals  may  come,  or  how  soon  a  curfew-bell  may  be 
ringing  in  American  towns  ?  The  winning  of  liberty  is  long 
and  tedious  ;  but  the  losing  it  is  a  down-hill,  easy  journey. 

It  was  here,  in  St.  Louis,  that  General  Fremont  held  his 
military  court.  He  was  a  great  man  here  during  those 
hundred  days  through  which  his  command  lasted.  He  lived 
in  a  great  house,  had  a  body-guard,  was  inaccessible  as  a 
great  man  should  be,  and  fared  sumptuously  every  day.  He 
fortified  the  city — or  rather,  he  began  to  do  so.  He  con- 
structed barracks  here,  and  instituted  military  prisons.  The 


100 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


fortifications  have  been  discontinued  as  useless,  but  the  bar- 
racks and  the  prisons  remain.  In  the  latter  there  were  1200 
secessionist  soldiers  who  had  been  taken  in  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri. "  Why  are  they  not  exchanged  ?"  I  asked.  "Because 
they  are  not  exactly  soldiers,-'  I  was  informed.  "  The  seces- 
sionists do  not  acknowledge  them."  "  Then  would  it  not  be 
cheaper  to  let  them  go?"  "No,"  said  my  informant;" 
"because  in  that  case  we  would  have  to  catch  them  again." 
And  so  the  1200  remain  in  their  wretched  prison — thinned 
from  week  to  week  and  from  day  to  day  by  prison  disease 
and  prison  death. 

I  went  out  twice  to  Benton  Barracks,  as  the  camp  of 
wooden  huts  was  called,  which  General  Fremont  had  erected 
near  the  fair-ground  of  the  city.  This  fair-ground,  I  was 
told,  had  been  a  pleasant  place.  It  had  been  constructed 
for  the  recreation  of  the  city,  and  for  the  purpose  of  period- 
ical agricultural  exhibitions.  There  is  still  in  it  a  pretty 
ornamented  cottage,  and  in  the  little  garden  a  solitary  Cupid 
stood,  dismayed  by  the  dirt  and  ruin  around  him.  In  the 
fair-green  are  the  round  buildings  intended  for  show  cattle 
and  agricultural  icaplements,  but  now  given  up  to  cavalry 
horses  and  Parrott  guns.  Bat  Benton  Barracks  are  outside 
the  fair-green.  Here  on  an  open  space,  some  half  mile  in 
length,  two  long  rows  of  wooden  sheds  have  been  built, 
opposite  to  each  other,  and  behind  them  are  other  sheds 
used  for  stabling  and  cooking  places.  Those  in  front  are 
divided,  not  into  separate  huts,  but  into  chambers  capable 
of  containing  nearly  two  hundred  men  each.  They  were 
surrounded  on  the  inside  by  great  wooden  trays,  in  three 
tiers — and  on  each  tray  four  men  were  supposed  to  sleep.  I 
went  into  one  or  two  while  the  crowd  of  soldiers  was  in 
them,  but  found  it  inexpedient  to  stay  there  long.  The 
stench  of  those  places  was  foul  beyond  description.  Never 
in  my  life  before  had  I  been  in  a  place  so  horrid  to  the  eyes 
and  nose  as  Benton  Barracks.  The  path  along  the  front 
outside  was  deep  in  mud.  The  whole  space  between  the  two 
rows  of  sheds  was  one  field  of  mud,  so  slippery  that  the  foot 
could  not  stand.  Inside  and  outside  every  spot  was  deep  in 
mud.  The  soldiers  were  mud-stained  from  foot  to  sole. 
These  volunteer  soldiers  are  in  their  nature  dirty,  as  must  be 
all  men  brought  together  in  numerous  bodies  without  special 
appliances  for  cleanliness,  or  control  and  discipline  as  to 
their  personal  habits.  But  the  dirt  of  the  men  in  the  Benton 


BENTON  BARRACKS. 


101 


Barracks  surpassed  any  dirt  that  I  had  hitherto  seen.  Nor 
could  it  have  been  otherwise  with  them.  They  were  sur- 
rounded by  a  sea  of  mud,  and  the  foul  hovels  in  which  they 
w^ere  made  to  sleep  and  live  were  fetid  with  stench  and  reek- 
ing with  filth.  I  had  at  this  time  been  joined  by  another 
Englishman,  and  we  went  through  this  place  together. 
When  we  inquired  as  to  the  health  of  the  men,  we  heard  the 
saddest  tales — of  three  hundred  men  gone  out  of  one  regi- 
ment, of  whole  companies  that  had  perished,  of  hospitals 
crowded  with  fevered  patients.  Measles  had  been  the  great 
scourge  of  the  soldiers  here — as  it  had  also  been  in  the  army 
of  the  Potomac.  1  shall  not  soon  forget  my  visits  to  Benton 
Barracks.  It  may  be  that  our  own  soldiers  were  as  badly 
treated  in  the  Crimea;  or  that  French  soldiers  were  treated 
worse  in  their  march  into  Russia.  It  may  be  that  dirt  and 
wretchedness,  disease  and  listless  idleness,  a  descent  from 
manhood  to  habits  lower  than  those  of  the  beasts,  are  neces- 
sary in  warfare.  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  it  is  so  ;  but 
I  am  no  military  critic,  and  will  not  say.  This  I  say — that 
the  degradation  of  men  to  the  state  in  which  I  saw  the 
American  soldiers  in  Benton  Barracks  is  disgraceful  to 
humanity. 

General  Halleck  was  at  this  time  commanding  in  Missouri, 
and  was  himself  stationed  at  St.  Louis ;  but  his  active  meas- 
ures against  the  rebels  were  going  on  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left.  On  the  left  shore  of  the  Mississippi,  at  Cairo,  in  Illi- 
nois, a  fleet  of  gun-boats  was  being  prepared  to  go  down  the 
river,  and  on  the  right  an  army  was  advancing  against  Spring- 
field, in  the  southwestern  district  of  Missouri,  with  the  ob- 
ject of  dislodging  Price,  the  rebel  guerrilla  leader  there,  and, 
if  possible,  of  catching  him.  Price  had  been  the  opponent 
of  poor  General  Lyons,  who  was  k'lled  at  Wilson's  Creek, 
near  Springfield,  and  of  General  Fremont,  who  during  his 
hundred  days  had  failed  to  drive  him  out  of  the  State.  This 
duty  had  now  been  intrusted  to  General  Curtis,  who  had  for 
some  time  been  holding  his  headquarters  at  Rolla,  half  way 
between  St.  Louis  and  Springfield.  Fremont  had  built  a 
fort  at  Rolla,  and  it  had  become  a  military  station.  Over 
10,000  men  had  been  there  at  one  time,  and  now  General 
Curtis  was  to  advance  from  Rolla  against  Price  with  some- 
thing above  that  number  of  men.  Many  of  them,  however, 
had  already  gone  on,  and  others  were  daily  being  sent  up 
from  St.  Louis.  Under  these  circumstances  my  friend  and 
VOL.  ir. — 9* 


102 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I,  fortified  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  General  Curtis, 
resolved  to  go  and  see  the  army  at  Rolla. 

On  our  way  down  by  the  railway  we  encountered  a  young 
German  officer,  an  aide-de-camp  of  the  Federals,  and  under 
his  auspices  we  saw  Rolla  to  advantage.  Our  companions 
in  the  railway  were  chiefly  soldiers  and  teamsters.  The  car 
was  crowded,  and  filled  with  tobacco  smoke,  apple  peel,  and 
foul  air.  In  these  cars  during  the  winter  there  is  always  a 
large  lighted  stove,  a  stove  that  might  cook  all  the  dinners 
for  a  French  hotel,  and  no  window  is  ever  opened.  Among 
our  fellow-travelers  there  was  here  and  there  a  west-country 
Missouri  farmer  going  down,  under  the  protection  of  the 
advancing  army,  to  look  after  the  remains  of  his  chattels — 
wild,  dark,  uncouth,  savage-looking  men.  One  such  hero  I 
specially  remember,  as  to  whom  the  only  natural  remark 
would  be  that  one  would  not  like  to  meet  him  alone  on  a 
dark  night.  He  was  burly  and  big,  unwashed  and  rough, 
with  a  black  beard,  shorn  some  two  months  since.  He  had 
sharp,  angry  eyes,  and  sat  silent,  picking  his  teeth  with  a 
bowie  knife.  I  met  him  afterward  at  the  Rolla  Hotel,  and 
found  that  he  was  a  gentleman  of  property  near  Springfield. 
He  was  mild  and  meek  as  a  sucking  dove,  asked  my  advice  as 
to  the  state  of  his  affairs,  and  merely  guessed  that  things  had 
been  pretty  rough  with  him.  Things  had  been  pretty  rough 
with  him.  The  rebels  had  come  upon  his  land.  House, 
fences,  stock,  and  crop  were  all  gone.  His  homestead  had 
been  made  a  ruin,  and  his  farm  had  been  turned  into  a  wil- 
derness. Everything  was  gone.  He  had  carried  his  wife 
and  children  off  to  Illinois,  and  had  now  returned,  hoping 
that  he  might  get  on  in  the  wake  of  the  army  till  he  could 
see  the  debris  of  his  property.  But  even  he  did  not  seem 
disturbed.    He  did  not  bemoan  himself  or  curse  his  fate. 

Things  were  pretty  rough,"  he  said  ;  and  that  was  all  that 
he  did  say. 

It  was  dark  when  we  got  into  Rolla.  Everything  had 
been  covered  with  snow,  and  everywhere  the  snow  was 
frozen.  We  had  heard  that  there  was  a  hotel,  and  that  pos- 
sibly we  might  get  a  bed-room  there.  We  were  first  taken 
to  a  wooden  building,  which  we  were  told  was  the  head- 
quarters of  the  army,  and  in  one  room  we  found  a  colonel 
with  a  lot  of  soldiers  loafing  about,  and  in  another  a 
provost  martial  attended  by  a  newspaper  correspondent. 
We  were  received  with  open  arms,  and  a  suggestion  was  at 


ROLLA. 


103 


once  made  that  we  were  no  doubt  picking  up  news  for 
European  newspapers.  "Air  you  a  son  of  the  Mrs.  Trol- 
lope?"  said  the  correspondent.  "Then,  sir,  you  are  an 
accession  to  Rolla."  Upon  which  I  was  made  to  sit  down, 
and  invited  to  "loaf  about"  at  the  headquarters  as  long  as 
I  might  remain  at  Rolla,  Shortly,  however,  there  came  on 
a  violent  discussion  about  wagons.  A  general  had  come  in 
and  wanted  all  the  colonel's  wagons,  but  the  colonel  sv/ore 
that  he  had  none,  declared  how  bitterly  he  was  impeded 
with  sick  men,  and  became  indignant  and  reproachful.  It 
was  Brutus  and  Cassius  again ;  and  as  we  felt  ourselves  in 
the  way,  and  anxious  moreover  to  ascertain  what  might  be 
the  nature  of  the  Rolla  hotel,  we  took  up  our  heavy  port- 
manteaus— for  they  were  heavy — and  with  a  guide  to  show 
us  the  way,  started  off  through  the  dark  and  over  the  hill 
up  to  our  inn.  I  shall  never  forget  that  walk.  It  was  up 
hill  and  down  hill,  with  an  occasional  half-frozen  stream 
across  it.  My  friend  was  impeded  with  an  enormous  cloak 
lined  with  fur,  which  in  itself  was  a  burden  for  a  coalheaver. 
Our  guide,  who  was  a  clerk  out  of  the  colonel's  office,  car- 
ried an  umbrella  and  a  small  dressing-bag,  but  we  ourselves 
manfully  shouldered  our  portmanteaus.  Sydney  Smith  de- 
clared that  an  Englishman  only  wasted  his  time  in  training 
himself  for  gymnastic  aptitudes,  seeing  that  for  a  shilling 
he  could  always  hire  a  porter.  Had  Sydney  Smith  ever 
been  at  Rolla  he  would  have  written  differently.  I  could 
tell  at  great  length  how  I  fell  on  my  face  in  the  icy  snow, 
how  my  friend  stuck  in  the  frozen  mud  when  he  essayed  to 
jump  the  stream,  and  how  our  guide  walked  on  easily  in 
advance,  encouraging  us  with  his  voice  from  a  distance. 
Why  is  it  that  a  stout  Englishman  bordering  on  fifty  finds 
himself  in  such  a  predicament  as  that?  No  Frenchman, 
no  Italian,  no  German  would  so  place  himself,  unless  under 
the  stress  of  insurmountable  circumstances.  No  American 
would  do  so  under  any  circumstances.  As  I  slipped  about 
on  the  ice  and  groaned  with  that  terrible  fardle  on  my  back, 
burdened  with  a  dozen  shirts,  and  a  suit  of  dress  clothes, 
and  three  pair  of  boots,  and  four  or  five  thick  volumes,  and 
a  set  of  maps,  and  a  box  of  cigars,  and  a  washing  tub,  I 
confessed  to  myself  that  I  was  a  fool.  What  was  I  doing 
in  such  a  galley  as  that  ?  Why  had  I  brought  all  that  use- 
less lumber  down  to  Rolla?  Why  had  I  come  to  Rolla, 
with  no  certain  hope  even  of  shelter  for  a  night  ?    But  we 


104 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


did  reach  the  hotel;  we  did  get  a  room  between  us  with 
two  bedsteads.  And  pondering  over  the  matter  in  my  mind, 
since  that  evening,  I  have  been  inclined  to  think  that  the 
stout  Englishman  is  in  the  right  of  it.  No  American  of 
my  age  and  weight  will  ever  go  through  what  I  went 
through  then,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  he  does  not  in  his 
accustomed  career  go  through  worse  things  even  than  that. 
However,  if  I  go  to  Rolla  again  during  the  war,  I  will  at 
any  rate  leave  the  books  behind  me. 

What  a  night  we  spent  in  that  inn  I  They  who  know 
America  will  be  aware  that  in  all  hotels  there  is  a  free  ad- 
mixture of  different  classes.  The  traveler  in  Europe  may 
sit  down  to  dinner  with  his  tailor  and  shoemaker ;  but  if  so, 
his  tailor  and  shoemaker  have  dressed  themselves  as  he 
dresses,  and  are  prepared  to  carry  themselves  according  to 
a  certain  standard,  which  in  exterior  does  not  differ  from 
his  own.  In  the  large  Eastern  cities  of  the  States,  such  as 
Boston,  New  York,  and  Washington,  a  similar  practice  of 
life  is  gradually  becoming  prevalent.  There  are  various 
hotels  for  various  classes,  and  the  ordinary  traveler  does 
not  find  himself  at  the  same  table  with  a  butcher  fresh  from 
the  shambles.  But  in  the  West  there  are  no  distinctions 
whatever.  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that  in  the  West,  let  the 
"  a'  that "  comprise  what  it  may  of  coarse  attire  and  unsophis- 
ticated manners.  One  soon  gets  used  to  it.  In  that  inn  at 
Rolla  was  a  public  room,  heated  in  the  middle  by  a  stove, 
and  round  that  we  soon  found  ourselves  seated  in  a  com- 
pany of  soldiers,  farmers,  laborers,  and  teamsters.  But 
there  was  among  them  a  general ;  not  a  fighting,  or  would- 
be  fighting  general  of  the  present  time,  but  one  of  the  old- 
fashioned  local  generals, — men  who  held,  or  had  once  held, 
some  fabulous  generalship  in  the  State  militia.  There  we 
sat,  cheek  by  jowl  with  our  new  friends,  till  nearly  twelve 
o'clock,  talking  politics  and  discussing  the  war.  The  gen- 
eral was  a  stanch  Unionist,  having,  according  to  his  own 
showing,  suffered  dreadful  things  from  secessionist  persecu- 
tors since  the  rebellion  commenced.  As  a  matter  of  course 
everybody  present  was  for  the  Union.  In  such  a  place  one 
rarely  encounters  any  difference  of  opinion.  The  general 
was  very  eager  about  the  war,  advocating  the  immediate 
abolition  of  slavery,  not  as  a  means  of  improving  the  con- 
dition of  the  Southern  slaves,  but  on  the  ground  that  it 
would  ruin  the  Southern  masters.    We  all  sat  by,  edging 


ROLLA. 


105 


in  a  word  now  and  then,  but  the  general  was  the  talker  of 
the  evening.  He  was  very  wrathy,  and  swore  at  every  other 
word.    "It  was  pretty  well  time,"  he  said,  "to  crush  out 

this  rebellion,  and  by  it  must  and  should  be  crushed 

out;  General  Jim  Lane  was  the  man  to  do  it,  and  by  • 

General  Jim  Lane  would  do  it  I"  and  so  on.  In  all  such 
conversations  the  time  for  action  has  always  just  come,  and 
also  the  expected  man.  But  the  time  passes  by  as  other 
weeks  and  months  have  passed  before  it,  and  the  new  gen- 
eral is  found  to  be  no  more  successful  than  his  brethren. 
Our  friend  was  very  angry  against  England.  "When  we've 
polished  off  these  accursed  rebels,  I  guess  we'll  take  a  turn 
at  you.  You  had  your  turn  when  you  made  us  give  up 
Mason  and  Slidell,  and  we'll  have  our  turn  by-and-by." 
But  in  spite  of  his  dislike  to  our  nation  he  invited  us 
warmly  to  come  and  see  him  at  his  home  on  the  Missouri 
River.  It  was,  according  to  his  showing,  a  new  Eden, 
a  Paradise  upon  earth.  He  seemed  to  think  that  we  might 
perhaps  desire  to  buy  a  location,  and  explained  to  us  how 
readily  we  could  make  our  fortunes.  But  he  admitted  in 
the  course  of  his  eulogiums  that  it  would  be  as  much  as  his 
life  was  worth  to  him  to  ride  out  five  miles  from  his  own 
house.  In  the  mean  time  the  teamsters  greased  their  boots, 
the  soldiers  snored,  those  who  were  wet  took  off  their 
shoes  and  stockings,  hanging  them  to  dry  round  the  stove, 
and  the  Western  farmers  chewed  tobacco  in  silence,  and 
ruminated.  At  such  a  house  all  the  guests  go  in  to  their 
meals  together.  A  gong  is  sounded  on  a  sudden,  close 
behind  your  ears;  accustomed  as  you  may  probably  be  to 
the  sound,  you  jump  up  from  your  chair  in  the  agony  of  the 
crash,  and  by  the  time  that  you  have  collected  your  thoughts 
the  whole  crowd  is  off  in  a  general  stampede  into  the  eat- 
ing-room. You  may  as  well  join  them;  if  you  hesitate  as 
to  feeding  with  so  rough  a  lot  of  men,  you  will  have  to  set 
down  afterward  with  the  women  and  children  of  the  family, 
and  your  lot  will  then  be  worse.  Among  such  classes  in  the 
Western  States  the  men  are  always  better  than  the  women. 
The  men  are  dirty  and  civil,  the  women  are  dirty  and 
uncivil. 

On  the  following  day  we  visited  the  camp,  going  out 
in  an  ambulance  and  returning  on  horseback.  We  were 
accompanied  by  the  general's  aid-de-camp,  and  also,  to  our 
great  gratification,  by  the  general's  daughter.    There  had 


lOG 


NORTH  AMERICA 


been  a  hard  frost  for  some  nights,  but  though  the  cold  was 
very  great  there  was  always  heat  enough  in  the  middle  of 
the  day  to  turn  the  surface  of  the  ground  into  glutinous 
mud ;  consequently  we  had  all  the  roughness  induced  by 
frost,  but  none  of  the  usually  attendant  cleanliness.  In- 
deed, it  seemed  that  in  these  parts  nothing  was  so  dirty  as 
frost.  The  mud  stuck  like  paste  and  encompassed  every- 
thing. We  heard  that  morning  that  from  sixty  to  seventy 
baggage  wagons  had  "broken  through,"  as  they  called  it, 
and  stuck  fast  near  a  river,  in  their  endeavor  to  make  their 
way  on  to  Lebanon.  We  encountered  two  generals  of 
brigade,  General  Siegel,  a  German,  and  General  Ashboth, 
a  Hungarian,  both  of  whom  were  waiting  till  the  weather 
should  allow  them  to  advance.  They  were  extremely  cour- 
teous, and  warmly  invited  us  to  go  on  with  them  to  Lebanon 
and  Springfield,  promising  to  us  such  accommodation  as 
they  might  be  able  to  obtain  for  themselves.  I  was  much 
tempted  to  accept  the  offer ;  but  I  found  that  day  after  day 
might  pass  before  any  forward  movement  was  commenced, 
and  that  it  might  be  weeks  before  Springfield  or  even 
Lebanon  could  be  reached.  It  was  my  wish,  moreover,  to 
Bee  what  I  could  of  the  people,  rather  than  to  scrutinize 
the  ways  of  the  army.  We  dined  at  the  tent  of  General 
Ashboth,  and  afterward  rode  his  horses  through  the  camp 
back  to  Rolla.  I  was  greatly  taken  with  this  Hungarian 
gentleman.  He  was  a  tall,  thin,  gaunt  man  of  fifty,  a  pure- 
blooded  Magyar  as  I  was  told,  who  had  come  from  his  own 
country  with  Kossuth  to  America.  His  camp  circumstances 
were  not  very  luxurious,  nor  was  his  table  very  richly  spread ; 
but  he  received  us  with  the  ease  and  courtesy  of  a  gentle- 
man. He  showed  us  his  sword,  his  rifle,  his  pistols,  his 
chargers,  and  daguerreotype  of  a  friend  he  had  loved  in  his 
own  country.  They  were  all  the  treasures  that  he  carried 
with  him — over  and  above  a  chess-board  and  a  set  of  chess- 
men, which  sorely  tempted  me  to  accompany  him  in  his 
march. 

In  my  next  chapter,  which  will,  I  trust,  be  very  short,  I 
purport  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  what  I  saw  of  the  Ameri- 
can army,  and  therefore  I  will  not  now  describe  the  regi- 
ments which  we  visited.  The  tents  were  all  encompassed  by 
snovv,  and  the  ground  on  which  they  stood  was  a  bed  of 
mud ;  but  yet  the  soldiers  out  here  were  not  so  wretchedly 
forlorn,  or  apparently  so  miserably  uncomfortable,  as  those 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  WESTERN  STATES.         10  T 


at  Benton  Barracks.  I  did  not  encounter  that  horrid  sickly 
stench,  nor  were  the  men  so  pale  and  woe-begone.  On  the 
following  day  we  returned  to  St.  Louis,  bringing  back  with 
us  our  friend  the  German  aid-de-camp.  I  stayed  two  days 
longer  in  tliat  city,  and  then  I  thought  that  I  had  seen 
enough  of  Missouri ;  enough  of  Missouri  at  any  rate  under 
the  present  circumstances  of  frost  and  secession.  As  re- 
gards the  people  of  the  West,  I  must  say  that  they  were  not 
such  as  I  expected  to  find  them.  With  the  Northerns  we 
are  all  more  or  less  intimately  acquainted.  Those  Ameri- 
cans whom  we  meet  in  our  own  country,  or  on  the  continent, 
are  generally  from  the  North,  or  if  not  so  they  have  that 
type  of  American  manners  which  has  become  familiar  to  us. 
They  are  talkative,  intelligent,  inclined  to  be  social,  though 
frequently  not  sympathetically  social  with  ourselves  ;  some- 
what soi-disant,  but  almost  invariably  companionable.  As 
the  traveler  goes  southward  into  Maryland  and  Washing- 
ton, the  type  is  not  altered  to  any  great  extent.  The  hard 
intelligence  of  the  Yankee  gives  place  gradually  to  the 
softer,  and  perhaps  more  polished,  manner  of  the  Southern. 
But  the  change  thus  experienced  is  not  great  as  is  that 
between  the  American  of  the  Western  and  the  American  of 
the  Atlantic  States.  In  the  West  I  found  the  men  gloomy 
and  silent — I  might  almost  say  sullen.  A  dozen  of  them 
will  sit  for  hours  round  a  stove,  speechless.  They  chew  to- 
bacco and  ruminate.  They  are  not  offended  if  you  speak  to 
them,  but  they  are  not  pleased.  They  answer  with  mono- 
syllables, or,  if  it  be  practicable,  with  a  gesture  of  the  head. 
They  care  nothing  for  the  graces  or — shall  I  say — for  the 
decencies  of  life.  They  are  essentially  a  dirty  people. 
Dirt,  untidiness,  and  noise  seem  in  nowise  to  afflict  them. 
Things  are  constantly  done  before  your  eyes  which  should 
be  done  and  might  be  done  behind  your  back.  No  doubt 
we  daily  come  into  the  closest  contact  with  matters  which, 
if  we  saw  all  that  appertains  to  them,  would  cause  us  to 
shake  and  shudder.  In  other  countries  w^e  do  not  see  all 
this,  but  in  the  Western  States  we  do.  I  have  eaten  in 
Bedouin  tents,  and  have  been  ministered  to  by  Turks  and 
Arabs.  I  have  sojourned  in  the  hotels  of  old  Spain  and  of 
Spanish  America.  I  have  lived  in  Connaught,  and  have 
taken  up  my  quarters  with  monks  of  different  nations.  I 
have,  as  it  were,  been  educated  to  dirt,  and  taken  out  my 
degree  in  outward  abominations.    But  my  education  had 


108 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


not  reached  a  point  which  would  enable  me  to  live  at  ray 
ease  in  the  Western  States.  A  man  or  woman  who  can  do 
that  may  be  said  to  have  graduated  in  the  highest  honors, 
aud  to  have  become  absolutely  invulnerable,  either  through 
the  sense  of  touch,  or  by  the  eye,  or  by  the  nose.  Indiffer- 
ence to  appearances  is  there  a  matter  of  pride.  A  foul 
shirt  is  a  flag  of  triumph.  A  craving  for  soap  and  water  is 
as  the  wail  of  the  weak  and  the  confession  of  cowardice. 
This  indifference  is  carried  into  all  their  affairs,  or  rather 
this  manifestation  of  indifference.  A  few  pages  back,  I 
spoke  of  a  man  whose  furniture  had  been  sold  to  pay  a 
heavy  tax  raised  on  him  specially  as  a  secessionist ;  the 
same  man  had  also  been  refused  the  payment  of  rent  due  to 
him  by  the  government,  unless  he  would  take  a  false  oath. 
I  may  presume  that  he  was  ruined  in  his  circumstances  by 
the  strong  hand  of  the  Northern  army.  But  he  seemed  in 
nowise  to  be  unhappy  about  his  ruin.  He  spoke  with  some 
scorn  of  the  martial  law  in  Missouri,  but  I  felt  that  it  was 
esteemed  a  small  matter  by  him  that  his  furniture  was  seized 
and  sold.  No  men  love  money  with  more  eager  love  than 
these  Western  men,  but  tliey  bear  the  loss  of  it  as  an  Indian 
bears  his  torture  at  the  stake.  They  are  energetic  in  trade, 
speculating  deeply  whenever  speculation  is  possible ;  but 
nevertheless  they  are  slow  in  motion,  loving  to  loaf  about. 
They  are  slow  in  speech,  preferring  to  sit  in  silence,  with 
the  tobacco  between  their  teeth.  They  drink,  but  are  seldom 
drunk  to  the  eye ;  they  begin  at  it  early  in  the  morning,  and 
take  it  in  a  solemn,  sullen,  ugly  manner,  standing  always  at 
a  bar  ;  swallowing  their  spirits,  and  saying  nothing  as  they 
swallow  it.  They  drink  often,  and  to  great  excess;  but 
they  carry  it  off  without  noise,  sitting  down  and  ruminating 
over  it  with  the  everlasting  cud  within  their  jaws.  I  believe 
that  a  stranger  might  go  into  the  West,  and  passing  from 
hotel  to  hotel  through  a  dozen  of  them,  might  sit  for  hours 
at  each  in  the  large  everlasting  public  hall,  and  never  have 
a  word  addressed  to  him.  No  stranger  should  travel  in  the 
Western  States,  or  indeed  in  any  of  the  States,  without 
letters  of  introduction.  It  is  the  custom  of  the  country, 
and  they  are  easily  procured.  Without  them  everything  is 
barren ;  for  men  do  not  travel  in  the  States  of  America  as 
they  do  in  Europe,  to  see  scenery  and  visit  the  marvels  of 
old  cities  which  are  open  to  all  the  world.  The  social  and 
political  life  of  the  American  must  constitute  the  interest  of 


WESTERN  WOMEN. 


109 


the  traveler,  and  to  these  he  can  hardly  make  his  way  without 
introductions. 

1  cannot  part  with  the  West  without  saying,  in  its  favor, 
that  there  is  a  certain  manliness  about  its  men  which  gives 
them  a  dignity  of  their  own.  It  is  shown  in  that  very  in- 
difference of  which  I  have  spoken.  Whatever  turns  up,  the 
man  is  still  there;  still  unsophisticated  and  still  unbroken. 
It  has  seemed  to  me  that  no  race  of  men  requires  less  out- 
ward assistance  than  these  pioneers  of  civilization.  They 
rarely  amuse  themselves.  Food,  newspapers,  and  brandy 
smashes  suffice  for  life;  and  while  these  last,  whatever  may 
occur,  the  man  is  still  there  in  his  manhood.  The  fury  of 
the  mob  does  not  shake  him,  nor  the  stern  countenance  of 
his  present  martial  tyrant.  Alas !  I  cannot  stick  to  my 
text  by  calling  him  a  just  man.  Intelligence,  energy,  and 
endurance  are  his  virtues.  Dirt,  dishonesty,  and  morning 
drinks  are  his  vices. 

All  native  American  women  are  intelligent.  It  seems  to 
be  their  birthright.  In  the  Eastern  cities  they  have,  in 
their  upper  classes,  superadded  womanly  grace  to  this  intel- 
ligence, and  consequently  they  are  charming  as  companions. 
They  are  beautiful  also,  and,  as  I  believe,  lack  nothing  that 
a  lover  can  desire  in  his  love.  But  I  cannot  fancy  myself 
much  in  love  with  a  Western  lady,  or  rather  with  a  lady  in 
the  West.  They  are  as  sharp  as  nails,  but  then  they  are 
also  as  hard.  They  know,  doubtless,  all  that  they  ought  to 
know,  but  then  they  know  so  much  more  than  they  ought 
to  know.  They  are  tyrants  to  their  parents,  and  never 
practice  the  virtue  of  obedience  till  they  have  half-grown- 
up daughters  of  their  own.  They  have  faith  in  the  destiny 
of  their  country,  if  in  nothing  else ;  but  they  believe  that 
that  destiny  is  to  be  worked  out  by  the  spirit  and  talent  of 
the  young  women.  I  confess  that  for  me  Eve  would  have 
had  no  charms  h'ad  she  not  recognized  Adam  as  her  lord. 
I  can  forgive  her  in  that  she  tempted  him  to  eat  the  apple. 
Had  she  come  from  the  West  country,  she  would  have  or- 
dered him  to  make  his  meal,  and  then  I  could  not  have  for- 
given her. 

St.  Louis  should  be,  and  still  will  be,  a  town  of  great 
wealth.  To  no  city  can  have  been  given  more  means  of 
riches.  I  have  spoken  of  the  enormous  mileage  of  water 
communication  of  which  she  is  the  center.  The  country 
around  her  produces  Indian-corn,  wheat,  grasses,  hemp,  and 
VOL.  II. — 10 


110 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tobacco.  Coal  is  dug  even  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
city,  and  iron  mines  are  worked  at  a  distance  from  it  of  a 
hundred  miles.  The  iron  is  so  pure  that  it  is  broken  off  in 
solid  blocks,  almost  free  from  alloy;  and  as  the  metal 
stands  up  on  the  earth's  surface  in  the  guise  almost  of  a 
gigantic  metal  pillar,  instead  of  lying  low  within  its  bowels, 
it  is  worked  at  a  cheap  rate,  and  with  great  certainty. 
Nevertheless,  at  the  present  moment,  the  iron  works  of 
Pilot  Knob,  as  the  place  is  called,  do  not  pay.  As  far  as 
I  could  learn,  nothing  did  pay,  except  government  contracts. 


CHAPTER  yi. 

CAIRO    AND    CAMP  WOOD. 

To  whatever  period  of  life  my  days  may  be  prolonged,  I 
do  not  think  that  I  shall  ever  forget  Cairo.  I  do  not  mean 
Grand  Cairo,  which  is  also  memorable  in  its  way,  and  a 
place  not  to  be  forgotten,  but  Cairo  in  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois, which  by  native  Americans  is  always  called  Caaro. 
An  idea  is  prevalent  in  the  States — and  I  think  I  have  heard 
the  same  broached  in  England — that  a  popular  British  au- 
thor had  Cairo,  State  of  Illinois,  in  his  eye  when,  under  the 
name  of  Eden,  he  depicted  a  chosen,  happy  spot  on  the 
Mississippi  River,  and  told  ushow  certain  English  immigrants 
fixed  themselves  in  that  locality,  and  there  made  light  of 
those  little  ills  of  life  which  are  incident  to  humanity  even 
in  the  garden  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  But  I  doubt 
whether  that  author  ever  visited  Cairo  iir  midwinter,  and  I 
am  sure  that  he  never  visited  Cairo  when  Cairo  was  the 
seat  of  an  American  army.  Had  he  done  so,  his  love  of 
truth  would  have  forbidden  him  to  presume  that  even  Mark 
Tapley  could  have  enjoyed  himself  in  such  an  Eden. 

I  had  no  wish  myself  to  go  to  Cairo,  having  heard  it  but 
indifferently  spoken  of  by  all  men  ;  but  my  friend  with  whom 
I  was  traveling  was  peremptory  in  the  matter.  He  had 
heard  of  gun-boats  and  mortar-boats,  of  forts  built  upon 
the  river,  of  Columbiads,  Dahlgrens,  and  Parrotts,  of  all 


CAIRO. 


Ill 


the  pomps  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war,  and  enter- 
tained an  idea  that  Cairo  was  the  nucleus  or  pivot  of  all 
really  strategetic  movements  in  this  terrible  national  strug- 
gle. Under  such  circumstances  I  was  as  it  were  forced  to 
go  to  Cairo,  and  bore  myself,  under  the  circumstances,  as 
much  like  Mark  Tapley  as  my  nature  would  permit.  I  was 
not  jolly  while  I  was  there  certainly,  but  I  did  not  abso- 
lutely break  down  and  perish  in  its  mud. 

Cairo  is  the  southern  terminus  of  the  Illinois  Central 
Railway.  There  is  but  one  daily  arrival  there,  namely,  at 
half-past  four  in  the  morning ;  and  but  one  dispatch,  which 
is  at  half-past  three  in  the  morning.  Everything  is  thus 
done  to  assist  that  view  of  life  which  Mark  Tapley  took 
when  he  resolved  to  ascertain  under  what  possible  worst 
circumstances  of  existence  he  could  still  maintain  his  jovial 
character.  Why  anybody  should  ever  arrive  at  Cairo  at 
half-past  four  a.m.,  1  cannot  understand.  The  departure 
at  any  hour  is  easy  of  comprehension.  The  place  is  situ- 
ated exactly  at  the  point  at  which  the  Ohio  and  the  Missis- 
sippi meet,  and  is,  I  should  say — merely  guessing  on  the 
matter — some  ten  or  twelve  feet  lower  than  the  winter  level 
of  the  two  rivers.  This  gives  it  naturally  a  depressed  ap- 
pearance, which  must  have  much  aided  Mark  Tapley  in  his 
endeavors.  Who  were  the  founders  of  Cairo  I  have  never 
ascertained.  They  are  probably  buried  fathoms  deep  in  the 
mud,  and  their  names  will  no  doubt  remain  a  mystery  to  the 
latest  ages.  They  were  brought  thither,  I  presume,  by  the 
apparent  water  privileges  of  the  place;  but  the  water  priv- 
ileges have  been  too  much  for  them,  and  by  the  excess  of 
their  powers  have  succeeded  in  drowning  all  the  capital  of 
the  early  Cairovians,  and  in  throwing  a  wet  blanket  of  thick, 
moist,  glutinous  dirt  over  all  their  energies. 

The  free  State  of  Illinois  runs  down  far  south  between 
the  slave  States  of  Kentucky  to  the  east,  and  of  Missouri 
to  the  west,  and  is  the  most  southern  point  of  the  continu- 
ous free-soil  territory  of  the  Northern  States.  This  point 
of  it  is  a  part  of  a  district  called  Egypt,  which  is  as  fertile 
as  the  old  country  from  whence  it  has  borrowed  a  name ; 
but  it  suffers  under  those  afflictions  which  are  common  to 
all  newly-settled  lands  which  owe  their  fertility  to  the  vicin- 
ity of  great  rivers.  Fever  and  ague  universally  prevail. 
Men  and  women  grow  up  with  their  lantern  faces  like 
specters.   The  children  are  prematurely  old ;  and  the  earth, 


112 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


which  is  so  fruitful,  is  hideous  in  its  fertility.  Cairo  and 
its  immediate  neighborhood  must,  I  suppose,  have  been  sub- 
ject to  yearly  inundation  before  it  was  "settled  up."  At 
present  it  is  guarded  on  the  shores  of  each  river  by  high 
mud  banks,  built  so  as  to  protect  the  point  of  land.  These 
are  called  the  levees,  and  do  perform  their  duty  by  keeping 
out  the  body  of  the  waters.  The  shore  between  the  banks 
is,  I  believe,  never  above  breast-deep  with  the  inundation ; 
and  from  the  circumstances  of  the  place,  and  the  soft,  half- 
liquid  nature  of  the  soil,  this  inundation  generally  takes  the 
shape  of  mud  instead  of  water. 

Here,  at  the  very  point,  has  been  built  a  town.  Whether 
the  town  existed  during  Mr.  Tapley's  time  I  have  not  been 
able  to  learn.  At  the  period  of  my  visit  it  was  falling 
quickly  into  ruin ;  indeed,  I  think  I  may  pronounce  it  to 
have  been  on  its  last  legs.  At  that  moment  a  galvanic  mo- 
tion had  been  pumped  into  it  by  the  war  movements  of  Gen- 
eral Halleck;  but  the  true  bearings  of  the  town,  as  a  town, 
were  not  less  plainly  to  be  read  on  that  account.  Every 
street  was  absolutely  impassable  from  mud.  I  mean  that 
in  walking  down  the  middle  of  any  street  in  Cairo,  a  mod- 
erately-framed man  would  soon  stick  fast,  and  not  be  able 
to  move.  The  houses  are  generally  built  at  considerable 
intervals,  and  rarely  face  each  other;  and  along  one  side 
of  each  street  a  plank  boarding  was  laid,  on  which  the  mud 
had  accumulated  only  up  to  one's  ankles.  I  walked  all 
over  Cairo  with  big  boots,  and  with  my  trowsers  tucked  up 
to  my  knees;  but  at  the  crossings  I  found  considerable 
danger,  and  occasionally  had  my  doubts  as  to  the  possibil- 
ity of  progress.  I  was  alone  in  my  work,  and  saw  no  one 
else  making  any  such  attempt.  But  few  only  were  moving 
about,  and  they  moved  in  wretched  carts,  each  drawn  by 
two  miserable,  floundering  horses.  These  carts  were  always 
empty,  but  were  presumed  to  be  engaged  in  some  way  on 
military  service.  No  faces  looked  out  at  the  windows  of 
the  houses,  no  forms  stood  in  the  doorways.  A  few  shops 
were  open,  but  only  in  the  drinking-shops  did  I  see  custom- 
ers. In  these,  silent,  muddy  men  were  sitting,  not  with 
drink  before  them,  as  men  sit  with  us,  but  with  the  cud 
within  their  jaws,  ruminating.  Their  drinking  is  always 
done  on  foot.  They  stand  silent  at  a  bar,  with  two  small 
glasses  before  them.  Out  of  one  they  swallow  the  -whisky, 
and  from  the  other  they  take  a  gulp  of  water,  as  though  to 


CAIRO. 


113 


rinse  their  mouths.  After  that,  they  again  sit  down  and 
ruminate.  It  was  thus  that  men  enjoyed  themselves  at 
Cairo. 

I  cannot  tell  what  was  the  existing  population  of  Cairo. 
I  asked  one  resident;  but  he  only  shook  his  head  and  said 
that  the  place  was  about  "played  out."  And  a  miserable 
play  it  must  have  been.  I  tried  to  walk  round  the  point 
on  the  levees,  but  I  found  that  the  mud  was  so  deep  and 
slippery  on  that  which  protected  the  town  from  the  Missis- 
sippi that  I  could  not  move  on  it.  On  the  other,  which 
forms  the  bank  of  the  Ohio,  the  railway  runs,  and  here  was 
gathered  all  the  life  and  movement  of  the  place.  But  the 
life  was  galvanic  in  its  nature,  created  by  a  war  galvanism 
of  which  the  shocks  were  almost  neutralized  by  mud. 

As  Cairo  is  of  all  towns  in  America  the  most  desolate, 
so  is  its  hotel  the  most  forlorn  and  wretched.  Not  that  it 
lacked  custom.  It  was  so  full  that  no  room  was  to  be  had 
on  our  first  entry  from  the  railway  cars  at  five  a.m.,  and  we 
were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  washing  our  hands  and 
faces  in  the  public  wash-room.  When  I  entered  it  the 
barber  and  his  assistants  were  asleep  there,  and  four  or 
five  citizens  from  the  railway  were  busy  at  the  basins. 
There  is  a  fixed  resolution  in  these  places  that  you  shall  be 
drenched  with  dirt  and  drowned  in  abominations,  which  is 
overpowering  to  a  mind  less  strong  than  Mark  Tapley's. 
The  filth  is  paraded  and  made  to  go  as  far  as  possible. 
The  stranger  is  spared  none  of  the  elements  of  nastiness. 
I  remember  how  an  old  woman  once  stood  over  me  in  my 
youth,  forcing  me  to  swallow  the  gritty  dregs  of  her  ter- 
rible medicine  cup.  The  treatment  I  received  in  the  hotel 
at  Cairo  reminded  me  of  that  old  woman.  In  that  room 
I  did  not  dare  to  brush  my  teeth  lest  I  should  give  offense ; 
and  I  saw  at  once  that  I  was  regarded  with  suspicion 
when  I  used  my  own  comb  instead  of  that  provided  for  the 
public. 

At  length  we  got  a  room,  one  room  for  the  two.  I  had 
become  so  depressed  in  spirits  that  I  did  not  dare  to  object 
to  this  arrangement.  My  friend  could  not  complain  much, 
even  to  me,  feeling  that  these  miseries  had  been  produced 
by  his  own  obstinacy.  ''It  is  a  new  phase  of  life,"  he  said. 
That  at  any  rate  was  true.  If  nothing  more  be  necessary  for 
pleasurable  excitement  than  a  new  phase  of  life,  I  would 
recommend  all  who  require  pleasurable  excitement  to  go  to 
VOL.  IT. — 10* 


lU 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Cairo.  They  will  certainly  find  a  new  phase  of  life.  But 
do  not  let  them  remain  too  long,  or  they  may  find  some- 
thing beyond  a  new  phase  of  life.  Within  a  week  of  that 
time  my  friend  was  taking  quinine,  looking  hollow  about 
the  eyes,  and  whispering  to  me  of  fever  and  ague.  To 
say  that  there  was  nothing  eatable  or  drinkable  in  that 
hotel,  would  be  to  tell  that  which  will  be  understood  with- 
out telling.  My  friend,  however,  was  a  cautious  man,  car- 
rying with  him  conifortable  tin  pots,  hermetically  sealed, 
from  Fortnum  &  Mason's ;  and  on  the  second  day  of  our 
sojourn  we  were  invited  by  two  officers  to  join  their  dinner 
at  a  Cairo  eating-house.  We  plowed  our  way  gallantly 
through  the  mud  to  a  little  shanty,  at  the  door  of  which 
we  were  peremptorily  commanded  by  the  landlord  to  scrub 
ourselves,  before  we  entered,  with  the  stump  of  an  old  broom. 
This  we  did,  producing  on  our  nether  persons  the  appear- 
ance of  bread  which  has  been  carefully  spread  with  treacle 
by  an  economic  housekeeper.  And  the  proprietor  was 
right,  for  had  we  not  done  so,  the  treacle  would  have  run 
off  through  the  whole  house.  But  after  this  we  fared 
royally.  Squirrel  soup  and  prairie  chickens  regajed  us. 
One  of  our  new  friends  had  laden  his.  pockets  with  cham- 
pagne and  brandy;  the  other  with  glasses  and  a  corkscrew; 
and  as  the  bottle  went  round,  I  began  to  ftel  something  of 
the  spirit  of  Mark  Tapley  in  my  soul. 

But  our  visit  to  Cairo  had  been  made  rather  with  refer- 
ence to  its  present  warlike  character  than  with  any  eye  to 
the  natural  beauties  of  the  place.  A  large  force  of  men 
had  been  collected  there,  and  also  a  fleet  of  gun-boats.  We 
had  come  there  fortified  with  letters  to  generals  and  com- 
modores, and  were  prepared  to  go  through  a  large  amount 
of  military  inspection.  But  the  bird  had  flown  before  our 
arrival;  or  rather  the  body  and  wings  of  the  bird,  leaving 
behind  only  a  draggled  tail  and  a  few  of  its  feathers.  There 
were  only  a  thousand  soldiers  at  Cairo  when  we  were  there 
— that  is,  a  thousand  stationed  in  the  Cairo  sheds.  Two 
regiments  passed  through  the  place  during  the  time,  get- 
ting out  of  one  steamer  on  to  another,  or  passing  from  the 
railway  into  boats.  One  of  these  regiments  passed  before 
me  down  the  slope  of  the  river  bank,  and  the  men  as  a 
body  seemed  to  be  healthy.  Yery  many  were  drunk,  and 
all  were  mud-clogged  up  to  their  shoulders  and  very  caps. 
In  other  respects  they  appeared  to  be  in  good  order.  It 


CAIRO. 


115 


must  be  understood  that  these  soldiers,  the  volunteers,  had 
never  been  made  subject  to  any  discipline  as  to  cleanliness. 
They  wore  their  hair  long.  Their  hats  or  caps,  though  all 
made  in  some  military  form  and  with  some  military  append- 
ance,  were  various  and  ill  assorted.  They  all  were  covered 
with  loose,  thick,  blue-gray  great-coats,  which  no  doubt 
were  warm  and  wholesome,  but  which  from  their  looseness 
and  color  seemed  to  be  peculiarly  susceptible  of  receiving 
and  showing  a  very  large  amount  of  mud.  Their  boots 
were  always  good;  but  each  man  was  shod  as  he  liked. 
Many  wore  heavy  overboots  coming  up  the  leg — boots  of 
excellent  manufacture,  and  from  their  cost,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  an  English  soldier — boots 
in  which  a  man  would  be  not  at  all  unfortunate  to  find  him- 
self hunting;  but  from  these,  or  from  their  high-lows,  shoes, 
or  whatever  they  might  wear,  the  mud  had  never  been  even 
scraped.  These  men  were  all  warmly  clothed,  but  clothed 
apparently  with  an  endeavor  to  contract  as  much  mud  as 
might  be  possible. 

The  generals  and  commodores  were  gone  up  the  Ohio 
River  and  up  the  Tennessee  in  an  expedition  with  gun- 
boats, which  turned  out  to  be  successful,  and  of  which  we 
have  all  read  in  the  daily  history  of  this  war.  They  had 
departed  the  day  before  our  arrival;  and  though  we  still 
found  at  Cairo  a  squadron  of  gun-boats — if  gun-boats  go 
in  squadrons — the  bulk  of  the  army  had  been  moved.  There 
were  left  there  one  regiment  and  one  colonel,  who  kindly 
described  to  us  the  battles  he  had  fought,  and  gave  us  per- 
mission to  gee  everything  that  was  to  be  seen.  Four  of  these 
gun-boats  were  still  lying  in  the  Ohio,  close  under  the  ter- 
minus of  the  railway,  with  their  flat,  ugly  noses  against  the 
muddy  bank;  and  we  were  shown  over  two  of  them.  They 
certainly  seemed  to  be  formidable  weapons  for  river  war- 
fare, and  to  have  been  "got  up  quite  irrespective  of  ex- 
pense." So  much,  indeed,  may  be  said  for  the  Americans 
throughout  the  war.  They  cannot  be  accused  of  parsimony. 
The  largest  of  these  vessels,  called  the  "Benton,"  had  cost 
36,000/.  These  boats  are  made  with  sides  sloping  inward  at 
an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees.  The  iron  is  two  and  a  half 
inches  thick,  and  it  has  not,  I  believe,  been  calculated  that 
this  will  resist  cannon-shot  of  great  weight,  should  it  be 
struck  in  a  direct  line.  But  the  angle  of  the  sides  of  the 
boat  makes  it  improbable  that  any  such  shot  should  strike 


116 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


them ;  and  the  iron,  bedded  as  it  is  upon  oak,  is  supposed 
to  be  sufficient  to  turn  a  shot  that  docs  not  hit  it  in  a  direct 
line.  The  boats  are  also  roofed  in  with  iron  ;  and  the  pilots 
who  steer  the  vessel  stand  incased,  as  it  were,  under  an  iron 
cupola.  I  imagine  that  these  boats  are  well  calculated  for 
the  river  service,  for  which  they  have  been  built.  Six  or 
seven  of  them  had  gone  up  the  Tennessee  River  the  day 
before  we  reached  Cairo  ;  and  while  we  were  there  they 
succeeded  in  knocking  down  Fort  Henry,  and  in  carrying 
off  the  soldiers  stationed  there  and  the  officer  in  command. 
One  of  the  boats,  however,  had  been  penetrated  by  a  shot, 
which  made  its  way  into  the  boiler ;  and  the  men  on  deck 
— six,  I  think,  in  number — were  scalded  to  death  by  the 
escaping  steam.  The  two  pilots  up  in  the  cupola  were  de- 
stroyed in  this  terrible  manner.  As  they  were  altogether 
closed  in  by  the  iron  roof  and  sides,  there  was  no  escape 
for  the  steam.  The  boats,  however,  were  well  made  and 
very  powerfully  armed,  and  will  probably  succeed  in  driving 
the  secessionist  armies  away  from  the  great  river  banks. 
By  what  machinery  the  secessionist  armies  are  to  be  fol- 
lowed into  the  interior  is  altogether  another  question. 

But  there  was  also  another  fleet  at  Cairo,  and  we  were 
informed  that  we  were  just  in  time  to  see  the  iirst  essay 
made  at  testing  the  utility  of  this  armada.  It  consisted  of 
no  less  than  thirty-eight  mortar-boats,  each  of  which  had 
cost  nOOZ.  These  mortar-boats  were  broad,  flat-bottomed 
rafts,  each  constructed  with  a  deck  raised  three  feet  above 
the  bottom.  They  were  protected  by  high  iron  sides  sup- 
posed to  be  proof  against  rifle-balls,  and,  when  supplied, 
had  been  furnished  each  with  a  little  boat,  a  rope,  and  four 
rough  sweeps  or  oars.  Tliey  had  no  other  furniture  or 
belongings,  and  were  to  be  moved  either  by  steam-tugs  or 
by  the  use  of  the  long  oars  which  were  sent  with  them.  It 
was  intended  that  one  13-inch  mortar,  of  enormous  weight, 
should  be  put  upon  each;  that  these  mortars  should  be  fired 
with  twenty-three  pounds  of  powder  ;  and  that  the  shell 
thrown  should,  at  a  distance  of  three  miles,  fall  with  absolute 
precision  into  any  devoted  town  which  the  rebels  might  hold 
on  the  river  banks.  The  grandeur  of  the  idea  is  almost 
sublime.  So  large  an  amount  of  powder  had,  I  imagine, 
never  then  been  used  for  the  single  charge  in  any  instru- 
ment of  war  ;  and  when  we  were  told  that  thirty-eight  of 
them  were  to  play  at  once  on  a  city,  and  that  they  could  be 


MORTAR- BOATS. 


IIT 


used  with  absolute  precision,  it  seemed  as  though  the  fate 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  could  not  be  worse  than  the  fate 
of  that  city.  Could  any  city  be  safe  when  such  implements 
of  war  were  about  upon  the  waters  ? 

But  when  we  came  to  inspect  the  mortar-boats,  our  mis- 
givings as  to  any  future  destination  for  this  fleet  were  re- 
lieved ;  and  our  admiration  was  given  to  the  smartness  of 
the  contractor  who  had  secured  to  himself  the  job  of  build- 
ing them.  In  the  first  place,  they  had  all  leaked  till  the 
spaces  between  the  bottoms  and  the  decks  were  filled  with 
water.  This  space  had  been  intended  for  ammunition,  but 
now  seemed  hardly  to  be  fitted  for  that  purpose.  The 
officer  who  was  about  to  test  them,  by  putting  a  mortar 
into  one  and  by  firing  it  off  with  twenty-three  pounds  of 
powder,  had  the  water  pumped  out  of  a  selected  raft ;  and 
we  were  towed  by  a  steam-tug,  from  their  moorings  a  mile 
up  the  river,  down  to  the  spot  where  the  mortar  lay  ready 
to  be  lifted  in  by  a  derrick.  But  as  we  turned  on  the  river, 
the  tug-boat  which  had  brought  us  down  was  unable  to  hold 
us  up  against  the  force  of  the  stream.  A  second  tug-boat 
was  at  hand  ;  and,  with  one  on  each  side,  we  were  just  able 
in  half  an  hour  to  recover  the  hundred  yards  which  we  had 
lost  down  the  river.  The  pressure  against  the  stream  was 
so  great,  owing  partly  to  the  weight  of  the  raft  and  partly 
to  the  fact  that  its  flat  head  buried  itself  in  the  water,  that 
it  was  almost  immovable  against  the  stream,  although  the 
mortar  was  not  yet  on  it. 

It  soon  became  manifest  that  no  trial  could  be  made  on 
that  day,  and  so  we  were  obliged  to  leave  Cairo  without 
having  witnessed  the  firing  of  the  great  gun.  My  belief  is 
that  very  little  evil  to  the  enemy  will  result  from  those  mor- 
tar-boats, and  that  they  cannot  be  used  with  much  effect. 
Since  that  time  they  have  been  used  on  the  Mississippi,  but 
as  yet  we  do  not  know  with  what  results.  Island  No.  10 
has  been  taken  ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  the  mortar-boats 
contributed  much  to  that  success.  But  the  enormous  cost 
of  moving  them  against  the  stream  of  the  river  is  in  itself 
a  barrier  to  their  use.  When  we  saw  them — and  then  they 
were  quite  new — many  of  the  rivets  were  already  gone.  The 
small  boats  had  been  stolen  from  some  of  them,  and  the 
ropes  and  oars  from  others.  There  they  lay,  thirty-eight 
in  number,  up  against  the  mud  banks  of  the  Ohio,  under 
the  boughs  of  the  half-clad,  melancholy  forest  trees,  as  sad 


118 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


a  spectacle  of  reckless  prodigality  as  the  eye  ever  beheld. 
But  the  contractor  who  made  them  no  doubt  was  a  smart 
man. 

This  armada  was  moored  on  the  Ohio,  against  the  low, 
reedy  bank,  a  mile  above  the  levee,  where  the  old,  unchanged 
forest  of  nature  came  down  to  the  very  edge  of  the  river, 
and  mixed  itself  with  the  shallow,  overflowing  waters.  I 
am  wrong  in  saying  that  it  lay  under  the  boughs  of  the 
trees,  for  such  trees  do  not  spread  themselves  out  with  broad 
branches.  They  stand  thickly  together,  broken,  stunted, 
spongy  with  rot,  straight,  and  ugly,  with  ragged  tops  and 
shattered  arms,  seemingly  decayed,  but  still  ever  renewing 
themselves  with  the  rapid,  moist  life  of  luxuriant  forest  vege- 
tation. Nothing  to  my  eyes  is  sadder  than  the  monotonous 
desolation  of  such  scener}''.  We  in  England,  when  we  read 
and  speak  of  the  primeval  forests  of  America,  are  apt  to  form 
pictures  in  our  minds  of  woodland  glades,  with  spreading 
oaks,  and  green,  mossy  turf  beneath — of  scenes  than  which 
nothing  that  God  has  given  us  is  more  charming.  But  these 
forests  are  not  after  that  fashion  ;  they  offer  no  allurement 
to  the  lover,  no  solace  to  the  melancholy  man  of  thought. 
The  ground  is  deep  with  mud  or  overflown  with  water.  The 
soil  and  the  river  have  no  defined  margins.  Each  tree, 
though  full  of  the  forms  of  life,  has  all  the  appearance  of 
death.  Even  to  the  outward  eye  they  seem  to  be  laden  with 
ague,  fever,  sudden  chills,  and  pestilential  malaria. 

When  we  first  visited  the  spot  we  were  alone,  and  we 
walked  across  from  the  railway  line  to  the  place  at  which 
the  boats  were  moored.  They  lay  in  treble  rank  along  the 
shore,  and  immediately  above  them  an  old  steamboat  was 
fastened  against  the  bank.  Her  back  was  broken,  and  she 
was  given  up  to  ruin — placed  there  that  she  might  rot 
quietly  into  her  watery  grave.  It  was  midwinter,  and 
every  tree  was  covered  with  frozen  sleet  and  small  particles 
of  snow  which  had  drizzled  through  the  air;  for  the  snow 
had  not  fallen  in  hearty,  honest  flakes.  The  ground  be- 
neath our  feet  was  crisp  with  frost,  but  traitorous  in  its 
crispness;  not  frozen  manfully  so  as  to  bear  a  man's  weight, 
but  ready  at  every  point  to  let  him  through  into  the  fat, 
glutinous  mud  below.  I  never  saw  a  sadder  picture,  or 
one  which  did  more  to  awaken  pity  for  those  whose  fate 
had  fixed  their  abodes  in  such  a  locality.  And  yet  there 
was  a  beauty  about  it  too — a  melancholy,  death-like  beauty. 


CAIRO. 


119 


The  disordered  ruin  and  confused  decay  of  the  forest  was 
all  gemmed  with  particles  of  ice.  The  eye  reaching  through 
the  thin  underwood  could  form  for  itself  picturesque  shapes 
and  solitary  bowers  of  broken  wood,  which  were  bright 
with  the  opaque  brightness  of  the  hoar-frost.  The  great 
river  ran  noiselessly  along,  rapid  but  still  with  an  apparent 
lethargy  in  its  waters.  The  ground  beneath  our  feet  was 
fertile  beyond  compare,  but  as  yet  fertile  to  death  rather 
than  to  life.  Where  we  then  trod  man  had  not  yet  come 
with  his  axe  and  his  plow ;  but  the  railroad  was  close  to 
us,  and  within  a  mile  of  the  spot  thousands  of  dollars  had 
been  spent  in  raising  a  city  which  was  to  have  been  rich 
with  the  united  wealth  of  the  rivers  and  the  land.  Hitherto 
fever  and  ague,  mud  and  malaria,  had  been  too  strong  for 
man,  and  the  dollars  had  been  spent  in  vain.  The  day, 
however,  will  come  when  this  promontory  between  the  two 
great  rivers  will  be  a  fit  abode  for  industry.  Men  will 
settle  there,  wandering  down  from  the  North  and  East,  and 
toil  sadly,  and  leave  their  bones  among  the  mud.  Thin, 
pale-faced,  joyless  mothers  will  come  there,  and  grow  old 
before  their  time;  and  sickly  children  will  be  born,  strug- 
gling up  with  wan  faces  to  their  sad  life's  labor.  But  the 
w^ork  will  go  on,  for  it  is  God's  work ;  and  the  earth  will 
be  prepared  for  the  people,  and  the  fat  rottenness  of  the 
still  living  forest  will  be  made  to  give  forth  its  riches. 

We  found  that  tw^o  days  at  Cairo  were  quite  enough  for 
us.  We  had  seen  the  gun-boats  and  the  mortar-boats,  and 
gone  through  the  sheds  of  the  soldiers.  The  latter  were 
bad,  comfortless,  damp,  and  cold;  and  certain  quarters  of 
the  officers,  into  which  we  were  hospitably  taken,  were 
wretched  abodes  enough;  but  the  sheds  of  Cairo  did  not 
stink  like  those  of  Benton  Barracks  at  St.  Louis,  nor 
had  illness  been  prevalent  there  to  the  same  degree.  I  do 
not  know  why  this  should  have  been  so,  but  such  was  the 
result  of  my  observation.  The  locality  of  Benton  Barracks 
must,  from  its  nature,  have  been  the  more  healthy,  but  it  had 
become  by  art  the  foulest  place  I  ever  visited.  Through- 
out the  army  it  seemed  to  be  the  fact,  that  the  men  under 
canvas  were  more  comfortable,  in  better  spirits,  and  also  in 
ftetter  health,  than  those  who  were  lodged  in  sheds.  We 
had  inspected  the  Cairo  army  and  the  Cairo  navy,  and  had 
also  seen  all  that  Cairo  had  to  show  us  of  its  own.  We 
were  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the  hotel,  and  retired  on 


120 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  second  iiiglit  to  bed,  giving  positive  orders  that  W3 
might  be  called  at  half-past  two,  with  reference  to  that  ter- 
rible start  to  be  made  at  half-past  three.  As  a  matter  of 
course  we  kept  dozing  and  waking  till  past  one,  in  our  fear 
lest  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  watcher  should  entail  on  us 
another  day  at  this  place ;  of  course  we  went  fast  asleep 
about  the  time  at  which  we  sliould  have  roused  ourselves; 
and  of  course  we  were  called  just  fifteen  minutes  before  the 
train  started.  Everybody  knows  how  these  things  always 
go.  And  then  the  pair  of  us  jumping  out  of  bed  in  that 
wretched  chamber,  went  through  the  mockery  of  washing 
and  packing  which  always  takes  place  on  such  occasions; 
a  mockery  indeed  of  washing,  for  there  was  but  one  basin 
between  us !  And  a  mockery  also  of  packing,  for  I  left 
my  hair-brushes  behind  me  !  Cairo  was  avenged  in  that  I 
had  declined  to  avail  myself  of  the  privileges  of  free  citizen- 
ship which  had  been  offered  to  me  in  that  barber's  shop. 
And  then,  while  we  were  in  our  agony,  pulling  at  the  straps 
of  our  portmanteaus  and  swearing  at  the  faithlessness  of 
the  boots,  up  came  the  clerk  of  the  hotel — the  great  man 
from  behind  the  bar — and  scolded  us  prodigiously  for  our 
delay.  "Called!  We  had  been  called  an  hour  ago  I" 
Which  statement,  however,  was  decidedly  untrue,  as  we 
remarked,  not  with  extreme  patience.  "  We  should  cer- 
tainly be  late,"  he  said;  "it  would  take  us  five  minutes  to 
reach  the  train,  and  the  cars  would  be  off  in  four."  Nobody 
who  has  not  experienced  them  can  understand  the  agonies 
of  such  moments — of  such  moments  as  regards  traveling  in 
general;  but  none  who  have  not  been  at  Cairo  can  under- 
stand the  extreme  agony  produced  by  the  threat  of  a  pro- 
longed sojourn  in  that  city.  At  last  we  were  out  of  the 
house,  rushing  through  the  mud,  slush,  and  half-melted 
snow,  along  the  wooden  track  to  the  railway,  laden  with 
bags  and  coats,  and  deafened  by  that  melancholy,  wailing 
sound,  as  though  of  a  huge  polar  she-bear  in  the  pangs  of 
travail  upon  an  iceberg,  which  proceeds  from  an  American 
railway-engine  before  it  commences  its  work.  How  we 
slipped  and  stumbled,  and  splashed  and  swore,  rushing 
along  in  the  dark  night,  with  buttons  loose,  and  our  clothes 
half  on !  And  how  pitilessly  we  were  treated  I  We  gained 
our  cars,  and  even  succeeded  in  bringing  with  us  our  lug- 
gage;  but  we  did  not  do  so  with  the  sympathy,  but  amid 
the  derision  of  the  by-standers.    And  then  the  seats  were 


DIFFICULTY  OF  ENTERING  "DIXIE.'' 


121 


all  full,  and  wc  found  that  there  was  a  lower  depth  even  in 
the  terrible  deep  of  a  railway  train  in  a  Western  State. 
There  was  a  second-class  carriage,  prepared,  I  presume,  for 
those  who  esteemed  themselves  too  dirty  for  association 
with  the  aristocracy  of  Cairo;  and  into  this  we  flung  our- 
selves. Even  this  was  a  joy  to  us,  for  we  were  being  car- 
ried away  from  Eden.  We  had  acknowledged  ourselves  to 
be  no  fitting  colleagues  for  Mark  Tapley,  and  would  have 
been  glad  to  escape  from  Cairo  even  had  we  worked  our 
way  out  of  the  place  as  assistant  stokers  to  the  engine- 
driver.  Poor  Cairo  !  unfortunate  Cairo  !  "  It  is  about 
played  out !"  said  its  citizen  to  me.  But  in  truth  the  play 
was  commenced  a  little  too  soon.  Those  players  have 
played  out;  but  another  set  will  yet  have  their  innings, 
and  make  a  score  that  shall  perhaps  be  talked  of  far  and 
wide  in  the  Western  World. 

We  were  still  bent  upon  army  inspection,  and  with  this 
purpose  went  back  from  Cairo  to  Louisville,  in  Kentucky. 
I  had  passed  through  Louisville  before,  as  told  in  my  last 
chapter,  but  had  not  gone  south  from  Louisville  toward  the 
Green  River,  and  had  seen  nothing  of  General  Buell's  sol- 
diers. I  should  have  mentioned  before  that  when  we  were 
at  St.  Louis,  we  asked  General  Halleck,  the  officer  in  com- 
mand of  the  Northern  army  of  Missouri,  whether  he  could 
allow  us  to  pass  through  his  lines  to  the  South.  This  he 
assured  us  he  was  forbidden  to  do,  at  the  same  time  offer- 
ing us  every  facility  in  his  power  for  such  an  expedition  if 
we  could  obtain  the  consent  of  Mr.  Seward,  who  at  that 
time  had  apparently  succeeded  in  engrossing  into  his  own 
hands,  for  the  moment,  supreme  authority  in  all  matters  of 
government.  Before  leaving  Washington  v/e  had  determ- 
ined not  to  ask  Mr.  Seward,  having  but  little  hope  of  ob- 
taining his  permission,  and  being  unwilling  to  encounter 
his  refusal.  Before  going  to  General  Halleck,  we  had  con- 
sidered the  question  of  visiting  the  land  of  "Dixie"  with- 
out permission  from  any  of  the  men  in  authority.  I  ascer- 
tained that  this  might  easily  have  been  done  from  Kentucky 
to  Tennessee,  but  that  it  could  only  be  done  on  foot.  There 
are  very  few  available  roads  running  North  and  South 
through  these  States.  The  railways  came  before  roads  ; 
and  even  where  the  railways  are  far  asunder,  almost  all  the 
traffic  of  the  country  takes  itself  to  them,  preferring  a  long 
circuitous  conveyance  with  steam,  to  short  distances  with- 

VOL.  II. — 11 


122 


NOUXn  AMERICA. 


out.  Consequently  such  roads  as  there  are  run  laterally  to 
the  railways,  meeting  them  at  this  point  or  that,  and  thus 
maintaining  the  communication  of  the  country.  Now  the 
railways  were  of  course  in  the  hands  of  the  armies.  The 
few  direct  roads  leading  from  North  to  South  were  in  the 
same  condition,  and  the  by-roads  were  impassable  from 
mud.  The  frontier  of  the  North,  therefore,  though  very 
extended,  was  not  very  easily  to  be  passed,  unless,  as  I  have 
said  before,  by  men  on  foot.  For  myself  I  confess  that  I 
was  anxious  to  go  South;  but  not  to  do  so  without  my 
coats  and  trowsers,  or  shirts  and  pocket-handkerchiefs. 
The  readiest  way  of  getting  across  the  line — and  the  way 
which  was,  I  believe,  the  most  frequently  used — was  from 
below  Baltimore,  in  Maryland,  by  boat  across  the  Potomac. 
But  in  this  there  was  a  considerable  dan,<;er  of  being  taken, 
and  I  had  no  desire  to  become  a  state-prisoner  in  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Seward  under  circumstances  which  would  have  jus- 
tified our  Minister  in  asking  for  my  release  only  as  a  matter 
of  favor.  Therefore,  when  at  St.  Louis,  I  gave  up  all  hopes 
of  seeing  "Dixie"  during  my  present  stay  in  America.  I 
presume  it  to  be  generally  known  that  Dixie  is  the  negro's 
heaven,  and  that  the  Southern  slave  States,  in  which  it  is 
presumed  that  they  have  found  a  Paradise,  have  since  the 
beginning  of  the  war  been  so  named. 

We  remained  a  few  days  at  Louisville,  and  were  greatly 
struck  with  the  natural  beauty  of  the  country  around  it. 
Indeed,  as  far  as  I  was  enabled  to  see,  Kentucky  has  supe- 
rior attractions,  as  a  place  of  rural  residence  for  an  English 
gentleman,  to  any  other  State  in  the  Union.  There  is  no- 
thing of  landscape  there  equal  to  the  banks  of  the  Upper 
Mississippi,  or  to  some  parts  of  the  Hudson  River.  It  lias 
none  of  the  wild  grandeur  of  the  White  Mountains  of  New 
Hampshire,  nor  does  it  break  itself  into  valleys  equal  to 
those  of  the  Alleghanies,  in  Pennsylvania.  But  all  those 
are  beauties  for  the  tourist  rather  than  for  the  resident.  In 
Kentucky  the  land  lays  in  knolls  and  soft  sloping  hills. 
The  trees  stand  apart,  forming  forest  openings.  The  herb- 
age is  rich,  and  the  soil,  though  not  fertile  like  the  prairies 
of  Illinois,  or  the  river  bottoms  of  the  Mississippi  and  its 
tributaries,  is  good,  steadfast,  wholesome  farming  ground. 
It  is  a  fine  country  for  a  resident  gentleman  farmer,  and  in 
its  outward  aspect  reminds  me  more  of  England  in  its  rural 
aspects  than  any  other  State  which  I  visit-ed.   Round  Louis- 


ARMY  MOVEMENTS  IN  KENTUCKY  AND  TENNESSEE.  123 

ville  there  are  beautiful  sites  for  houses,  of  which  advantage 
in  some  instances  has  been  taken.  But,  nevertheless,  Louis- 
ville, though  a  well-built,  handsome  city,  is  not  now  a  thriv- 
ing city.  I  liked  it  because  the  hotel  was  above  par,  and 
because  the  country  round  it  was  good  for  walking;  but  it 
has  not  advanced  as  Cincinnati  and  St.  Louis  have  advanced. " 
And  yet  its  position  on  the  Ohio  is  favorable,  and  it  is  well 
circumstanced  as  regards  the  wants  of  its  own  State.  But 
it  is  not  a  free-soil  city.  Nor,  indeed,  is  St.  Louis;  but 
St.  Louis  is  tending  that  way,  and  has  but  little  to  do  with 
the  "domestic  institution."  At  the  hotels  in  Cincinnati  and 
St.  Louis  you  are  served  by  white  men,  and  are  very  badly 
served.  At  Louisville  the  ministration  is  by  black  men, 
''bound  to  labor."  The  difference  in  the  comfort  is  very 
great.  The  white  servants  are  noisy,  dirty,  forgetful,  indif- 
ferent, and  sometimes  impudent.  The  negroes  are  the  very 
reverse  of  all  this ;  you  cannot  hurry  them ;  but  in  all  other 
respects — and  perhaps  even  in  that  respect  also — they  are 
good  servants.  This  is  the  work  for  which  they  seem  to  have 
been  intended.  But  nevertheless  where  they  are,  life  and 
energy  seem  to  languish,  and  prosperity  cannot  make  any 
true  advance.  They  are  symbols  of  the  luxury  of  the  white 
men  who  employ  them,  and  as  such  are  signs  of  decay  and 
emblems  of  decreasing  power.  They  are  good  laborers 
themselves,  but  their  very  presence  makes  labor  dishonora- 
ble. That  Kentucky  will  speedily  rid  herself  of  the  insti- 
tution, I  believe  firmly.  When  she  has  so  done,  the  com- 
mercial city  of  that  State  may  perhaps  go  ahead  again  like 
her  sisters. 

At  this  very  time  the  Federal  army  was  commencing  that 
series  of  active  movements  in  Kentucky,  and  through  Ten- 
nessee, which  led  to  such  important  results,  and  gave  to  the 
North  the  first  solid  victories  which  they  had  gained  since 
the  contest  began.  On  the  nineteenth  of  January,  one 
wing  of  General  Buell's  army,  under  General  Thomas,  had 
defeated  the  secessionists  near  Somerset,  in  the  southeastern 
district  of  Kentucky,  under  General  ZollicofiFer,  who  was 
there  killed.  But  in  that  action  the  attack  was  made  by 
Zollicoffer  and  the  secessionists.  When  we  were  at  Louis- 
ville we  heard  of  the  success  of  that  gun-boat  expedition  up 
the  Tennessee  River  by  which  Fort  Henry  was  taken.  Fort 
Henry  had  been  built  by  the  Confederates  on  the  Tennes- 
see, exactly  on  the  confines  of  the  States  of  Tennessee  and 


12i 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Kentucky.  They  had  also  another  fort,  Fort  Donelson,  on 
the  Cumberland  River,  which  at  that  point  runs  parallel  to 
the  Tennessee,  and  is  there  distant  from  it  but  a  very  few 
miles.  Both  these  rivers  run  into  the  Ohio.  Nashville, 
which  is  the  capital  of  Tennessee,  is  higher  up  on  the  Cum- 
berland; and  it  was  now  intended  to  send  the  gun-boats 
down  the  Tennessee  back  into  the  Ohio,  and  thence  up  the 
Cumberland,  there  to  attack  Fort  Donelson,  and  afterward 
to  assist  General  Buell's  army  in  making  its  way  down  to 
Nashville.  The  gun-boats  were  attached  to  General  Hal- 
leck's  army,  and  received  their  directions  from  St.  Louis. 
General  Buell's  headquarters  were  at  Louisville,  and  his 
advanced  position  was  on  the  Green  River,  on  the  line  of 
the  railway  from  Louisville  to  Nashville.  The  secessionists 
had  destroyed  the  railway  bridge  over  the  Green  River,  and 
were  now  lying  at  Bowling  Green,  between  the  Green  River 
and  Nashville.  This  place  it  was  understood  that  they  had 
fortified. 

Matters  were  in  this  position  when  we  got  a  military 
pass  to  go  down  by  the  railway  to  the  army  on  the  Green 
River,  for  the  railway  was  open  to  no  one  without  a  mili- 
tary pass;  and  we  started,  trusting  that  Providence  would 
supply  us  with  rations  and  quarters.  An  officer  attached  to 
General  Buell's  staff,  with  whom  however  our  acquaintance 
was  of  the  very  slightest,  had  telegraphed  down  to  say  that 
M^e  were  coming.  I  cannot  say  that  I  expected  much  from 
the  message,  seeing  that  it  simply  amounted  to  a  very  thin 
introduction  to  a  general  officer  to  whom  we  were  strangers 
even  by  name,  from  a  gentleman  to  whom  we  had  brought 
a  note  from  another  gentleman  whose  acquaintance  we  had 
chanced  to  pick  up  on  the  road.  We  manifestly  had  no 
right  to  expect  much;  but  to  us,  expecting  very  little,  very 
much  was  given.  General  Johnson  was  the  officer  to  whose 
care  we  were  confided,  he  being  a  brigadier  under  General 
McCook,  who  commanded  the  advance.  We  were  met  by 
an  aid-de-camp  and  saddle-horses,  and  soon  found  ourselves 
in  the  general's  tent,  or  rather  in  a  shanty  formed  of  solid 
upright  wooden  logs,  driven  into  the  ground  with  the  bark 
still  on,  and  having  the  interstices  filled  in  with  clay.  This 
was  roofed  with  canvas,  and  altogether  made  a  very  eligible 
military  residence.  The  general  slept  in  a  big  box,  about 
nine  feet  long  and  four  broad,  which  occupied  one  end  of 
the  shanty,  and  he  seemed  in  all  his  fixings  to  be  as  com- 


HOSPITALITY  OP  AMERICANS. 


125 


fortably  put  up  as  any  gentleman  might  be  when  out  on  such 
a  picnic  as  this.  We  arrived  in  time  for  dinner,  which  was 
brought  in,  table  and  all,  by  two  negroes.  The  party  was 
made  up  by  a  doctor,  who  carved,  and  two  of  the  staff,  and 
a  very  nice  dinner  we  had.  In  half  an  hour  we  were  inti- 
mate with  the  whole  party,  and  as  familiar  with  the  things 
around  us  as  though  we  had  been  living  in  tents  all  our 
lives.  Indeed,  t  had  by  this  time  been  so  often  in  the  tents 
of  the  Northern  army,  that  I  almost  felt  entitled  to  make 
myself  at  home.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  an  Englishman 
has  always  been  made  welcome  in  these  camps.  There  has 
been  and  is  at  this  moment  a  terribly  bitter  feeling  among 
Americans  against  England,  and  I  have  heard  this  expressed 
quite  as  loudly  by  men  in  the  army  as  by  civilians;  but  I 
think  I  may  say  that  this  has  neyer  been  brought  to  bear 
upon  individual  intercourse.  Certainly  we  have  said  some 
very  sharp  things  of  them  —  words  which,  whether  true  or 
false,  whether  deserved  or  undeserved,  must  have  been 
offensive  to  them.  I  have  known  this  feeling  of  offense  to 
amount  almost  to  an  agony  of  anger.  But  nevertheless  I 
have  never  seen  any  falling  off  in  the  hospitality  and  courtesy 
generally  shown  by  a  civilized  people  to  passing  visitors.  I 
have  argued  the  matter  of  England's  course  throughout  the 
war,  till  I  have  been  hoarse  with  asseverating  the  rectitude 
of  her  conduct  and  her  national  unselfishness.  I  have  met 
very  strong  opponents  on  the  subject,  and  have  been  coerced 
into  loud  strains  of  voice ;  but  I  never  yet  met  one  Amer- 
ican who  was  personally  uncivil  to  me  as  an  Englishman,  or 
who  seemed  to  be  made  personally  angry  by  my  remarks.  I 
found  no  coldness  in  that  hospitality  to  which  as  a  stranger 
I  was  entitled,  because  of  the  national  ill  feeling  which  cir- 
cumstances have  engendered.  And  while  on  this  subject  I 
will  remark  that,  when  traveling,  I  have  found  it  expedient 
to  let  those  with  whom  I  might  chance  to  talk  know  at  once 
that  I  was  an  Englishman.  In  fault  of  such  knowledge 
things  would  be  said  which  could  not  but  be  disagreeable 
to  me ;  but  not  even  from  any  rough  Western  enthusiast  in 
a  railway  carriage  have  I  ever  heard  a  word  spoken  inso- 
lently to  England,  after  I  had  made  my  nationality  known. 
I  have  learned  that  Wellington  was  beaten  at  Waterloo ; 
that  Lord  Palmerston  was  so  unpopular  that  he  could  not 
walk  alone  in  the  streets;  that  the  House  of  Commons 
was  an  acknowledged  failure;  that  starvation  was  the 
VOL.  n. — 11* 


126 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


normal  condition  of  the  British  people,  and  that  the  queen 
was  a  blood-thirsty  tyrant.  But  these  assertions  were  not 
made  with  the  intention  that  they  should  be  heard  by  an 
Englishman.  To  us  as  a  nation  they  are  at  the  present 
moment  unjust  almost  beyond  belief;  but  I  do  not  think 
that  the  feeling  has  ever  taken  the  guise  of  personal  dis- 
courtesy. 

We  spent  two  days  in  the  camp  close  upon  the  Green 
River,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  enjoyed  any  days  of  my 
trip  more  thoroughly  than  I  did  these.  In  truth,  for  the 
last  month  since  I  had  left  Washington,  my  life  had  not 
been  one  of  enjoyment.  I  had  been  rolling  in  mud  and  had 
been  damp  with  filth.  Camp  Wood,  as  they  called  this 
military  settlement  on  the  Green  River,  was  also  muddy; 
but  we  were  excellently  well  mounted;  the  weather  was 
very  cold,  but  peculiarly  fine,  and  the  soldiers  around  us,  as 
far  as  we  could  judge,  seemed  to  be  better  off  in  all  respects 
than  those  we  had  visited  at  St.  Louis,  at  Rolla,  or  at 
Cairo.  They  were  all  in  tents,  and  seemed  to  be  light- 
spirited  and  happy.  Their  rations  were  excellent;  but  so 
much  may,  I  think,  be  said  of  the  whole  Northern  army, 
from  Alexandria  on  the  Potomac  to  Springfield  in  the  west 
of  Missouri.  There  was  very  little  illness  at  that  time  in 
the  camp  in  Kentucky,  and  the  reports  made  to  us  led  us  to 
think  that  on  the  whole  this  had  been  the  most  healthy 
division  of  the  army.  The  men,  moreover,  were  less  muddy 
than  their  brethren  either  east  or  west  of  them — at  any  rate 
this  may  be  said  of  them  as  regards  the  infantry. 

But  perhaps  the  greatest  charm  of  the  place  to  me  was 
the  beauty  of  the  scenery.  The  Green  River  at  this  spot 
is  as  picturesque  a  stream  as  I  ever  remember  to  have  seen 
in  such  a  country.  It  lies  low  down  between  high  banks, 
and  curves  hither  and  thither,  never  keeping  a  straight  line. 
Its  banks  are  wooded ;  but  not,  as  is  so  common  in  Amer- 
ica, by  continuous,  stunted,  uninteresting  forest,  but  by  large 
single  trees  standing  on  small  patches  of  meadow  by  the 
water  side,  with  the  high  banks  rising  over  them,  with 
glades  through  them  open  for  the  horseman.  The  rides 
here  in  summer  must  be  very  lovely.  Even  in  winter  they 
were  so,  and  made  me  in  love  with  the  place  in  spite  of  that 
brown,  dull,  barren  aspect  which  the  presence  of  an  army 
always  creates.  I  have  said  that  the  railway  bridge  which 
crossed  the  Green  River  at  this  spot  had  been  destroyed  by 


PRIVILEGES  OP  BELLIGERENTS. 


the  secessionists.  This  had  been  done  effectually  as  re- 
garded the  passage  of  trains,  but  only  in  part  as  regarded 
the  absolute  fabric  of  the  bridge.  It  had  been,  and  still 
was  when  I  saw  it,  a  beautifully  light  construction,  made 
of  iron  and  supported  over  a  valley,  rather  than  over  a 
river,  on  tall  stone  piers.  One  of  these  piers  had  been 
blown  up;  but  when  we  were  there,  the  bridge  had  been 
repaired  with  beams  and  wooden  shafts.  This  had  just  been 
completed,  and  an  engine  had  passed  over  it.  I  must  con- 
fess that  it  looked  to  me  most  perilously  insecure ;  but  the 
eye  uneducated  in  such  mysteries  is  a  bad  judge  of  engineer- 
ing work.  I  passed  with  a  horse  backward  and  forward  on 
it,  and  it  did  not  tumble  down  then ;  but  I  confess  that  on 
the  first  attempt  I  was  glad  enough  to  lead  the  horse  by  the 
bridle. 

That  bridge  was  certainly  a  beautiful  fabric,  and  built  in 
a  most  lovely  spot.  Immediately  under  it  there  was  also  a 
pontoon  bridge.  The  tents  of  General  McCook's  division 
were  immediately  at  the  northern  end  of  it,  and  the  whole 
place  was  alive  with  soldiers,  nailing  down  planks,  pulling 
up  temporary  rails  at  each  side,  carrying  over  straw  for  the 
horses,  and  preparing  for  the  general  advance  of  the  troops. 
It  was  a  glorious  day.  There  had  been  heavy  frost  at  night ; 
but  the  air  was  dry,  and  the  sun  though  cold  was  bright. 
I  do  not  know  when  I  saw  a  prettier  picture.  It  would 
perhaps  have  been  nothing  without  the  loveliness  of  the 
river  scenery ;  but  the  winding  of  the  stream  at  the  spot, 
the  sharp  wooded  hills  on  each  side,  the  forest  openings,  and 
the  busy,  eager,  strange  life  together  filled  the  place  with  no 
common  interest.  The  officers  of  the  army  at  the  spot  spoke 
with  bitterest  condemnation  of  the  vandalism  of  their  enemy 
in  destroying  the  bridge.  The  justice  of  the  indignation  I 
ventured  very  strongly  to  question.  "  Surely  you  would 
have  destroyed  their  bridge  ?"  I  said.  "  But  they  are 
rebels,"  was  the  answer.  It  has  been  so  throughout  the 
contest ;  and  the  same  argument  has  been  held  by  soldiers 
and  by  non-soldiers — by  women  and  by  men.  "  Grant  that 
they  are  rebels,"  I  have  answered.  "But  when  rebels  fight 
they  cannot  be  expected  to  be  more  scrupulous  in  their 
mode  of  doing  so  than  their  enemies  who  are  not  rebels." 
The  whole  population  of  the  JN'orth  has  from  the  beginning 
of  this  war  considered  themselves  entitled  to  all  the  privileges 
of  belligerents ;  but  have  called  their  enemies  Goths  and 


128 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Vandals  for  even  claiming  those  privileges  for  themselves 
The  same  feeling  was  at  the  bottom  of  their  animosity 
against  England.  Because  the  South  was  in  rebellion, 
England  should  have  consented  to  allow  the  North  to  as- 
sume all  the  rights  of  a  belligerent,  and  should  have  denied 
all  those  rights  to  the  South  I  Nobody  has  seemed  to 
understand  that  any  privilege  which  a  belligerent  can  claim 
musfe  depend  on  the  very  fact  of  his  being  in  encounter  with 
some  other  party  having  the  same  privilege.  Our  press  has 
animadverted  very  strongly  on  the  States  government  for 
the  apparent  untruthfulness  of  their  arguments  on  this  mat- 
ter ;  but  I  profess  that  I  believe  that  Mr.  Seward  and  his 
colleagues — and  not  they  only  but  the  whole  nation — have 
so  thoroughly  deceived  themselves  on  this  subject,  have  so 
talked  and  speechified  themselves  into  a  misunderstanding 
of  the  matter,  that  they  have  taught  themselves  to  think 
that  the  men  of  the  South  could  be  entitled  to  no  considera- 
tion from  any  quarter.  To  have  rebelled  against  the  stars 
and  stripes  seems  to  a  Northern  man  to  be  a  crime  putting 
the  criminal  altogether  out  of  all  courts  —  a  crime  which 
should  have  armed  the  hands  of  all  men  against  him,  as  the 
hands  of  all  men  are  armed  at  a  dog  that  is  mad,  or  a  tiger 
that  has  escaped  from  its  keeper.  It  is  singular  that  such  a 
people,  a  people  that  has  founded  itself  on  rebellion,  should 
have  such  a  horror  of  rebellion ;  but,  as  far  as  ray  observa- 
tion may  have  enabled  me  to  read  their  feelings  rightly,  I 
do  believe  that  it  has  been  as  sincere  as  it  is  irrational. 

We  were  out  riding  early  on  the  morning  of  the  second 
day  of  our  sojourn  in  the  camp,  and  met  the  division  of 
General  Mitchell,  a  detachment  of  General  Buell's  army, 
which  had  been  in  camp  between  the  Green  River  and 
Louisville,  going  forward  to  the  bridge  which  was  then 
being  prepared  for  their  passage.  This  division  consisted 
of  about  12,000  men,  ard  the  road  was  crowded  throughout 
the  whole  day  with  them  and  their  wagons.  We  first  passed 
a  regiment  of  cavalry,  which  appeared  to  be  endless.  Their 
cavalry  regiments  are,  in  general,  more  numerous  than  those 
of  the  infantry,  and  on  this  occasion  we  saw,  I  believe,  about 
1200  men  pass  by  us.  Their  horses  were  strong  and  serv- 
iceable, and  the  men  were  stout  and  in  good  health ;  but 
the  general  appearance  of  everything  about  them  was  rough 
and  dirty.  The  American  cavalry  have  always  looked  to 
me  like  brigands.    A  party  of  them  would,  I  think,  make  a 


GERMAN  OPINION  OP  SLAVERY. 


129 


better  picture  than  an  equal  number  of  our  dragoons ;  but 
if  they  are  to  be  regarded  in  any  other  view  than  that  of  the 
picturesque,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  they  have  been  got 
up  successfully.  On  this  occasion  they  were  forming  them- 
selves into  a  picture  for  my  behoof,  and  as  the  picture  was, 
as  a  picture,  very  good,  I  at  least  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain. 

We  were  taken  to  see  one  German  regiment,  a  regiment 
of  which  all  the  privates  were  German  and  all  the  officers 
save  one — I  think  the  surgeon.  We  saw  the  men  in  their 
tents,  and  the  food  which  they  eat,  and  were  disposed  to 
think  that  hitherto  things  were  going  well  with  them.  In 
the  evening  the  colonel  and  lieutenant-colonel,  both  of  whom 
had  been  in  the  Prussian  service,  if  I  remember  rightly,  came 
up  to  the  general's  quarters,  and  we  spent  the  evening  to- 
gether in  smoking  cigars  and  discussing  slavery  round  the 
stove.  I  shall  never  forget  that  night,  or  the  vehement 
abolition  enthusiasm  of  the  two  German  colonels.  Our  host 
had  told  us  that  he  was  a  slaveowner  ;  and  as  our  wants 
were  supplied  by  two  sable  ministers,  I  concluded  that  he 
had  brought  with  him  a  portion  of  his  domestic  institution. 
Under  such  circumstances  I  myself  should  have  avoided 
such  a  subject,  having  been  taught  to  believe  that  Southern 
gentlemen  did  not  generally  take  delight  in  open  discus- 
sions on  the  subject.  But  had  we  been  arguing  the  ques- 
tion of  the  population  of  the  planet  Jupiter,  or  the  final 
possibility  of  the  transmutation  of  metals,  the  matter  could 
not  have  been  handled  with  less  personal  feeling.  The 
Germans,  however,  spoke  the  sentiments  of  all  the  Germans 
of  the  Western  States — that  is,  of  all  the  Protestant  Ger- 
mans, and  to  them  is  confined  the  political  influence  held 
by  the  German  immigrants.  They  all  regard  slavery  as  an 
evil,  holding  on  the  matter  opinions  quite  as  strong  as  ours 
have  ever  been.  And  they  argue  that  as  slavery  is  an  evil, 
it  should  therefore  be  abolished  at  once.  Their  opinions 
are  as  strong  as  ours  have  ever  been,  and  they  have  not  had 
our  West  Indian  experience.  Any  one  desiring  to  under- 
stand the  present  political  position  of  the  States  should 
realize  the  fact  of  the  present  German  influence  on  political 
questions.  Many  say  that  the  present  President  was  re- 
turned by  German  voters.  In  one  sense  this  is  true,  for  he 
certainly  could  not  have  been  returned  without  them  ;  but 
for  them,  or  for  their  assistance,  Mr.  Breckinridge  would 


130 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


have  been  President,  and  this  civil  war  would  not  have 
come  to  pass.  As  abolitionists  they  are  much  more  pow- 
erful than  the  Republicans  of  New  England,  and  also  more 
in  earnest.  In  New  England  the  matter  is  discussed  pol- 
itically ;  in  the  great  Western  towns,  where  the  Germans 
congregate  by  thousands,  they  profess  to  view  it  philosoph- 
ically. A  man,  as  a  man,  is  entitled  to  freedom.  That  is 
their  argument,  and  it  is  a  very  old  one.  When  you  ask 
them  what  they  would  propose  to  do  with  4,000,000  of  en- 
franchised slaves  and  with  their  ruined  masters,  how  they 
would  manage  the  affairs  of  those  12,000,000  of  people,  all 
whose  wealth  and  work  and  very  life  have  hitherto  been 
hinged  and  hung  upon  slavery,  they  again  ask  you  whether 
slavery  is  not  in  itself  bad,  and  whether  anything  acknowl- 
edged to  be  bad  should  be  allowed  to  remain. 

But  the  American  Germans  are  in  earnest,  and  I  am 
strongly  of  opinion  that  they  will  so  far  have  their  way, 
that  the  country  which  for  the  future  will  be  their  country 
will  exist  without  the  taint  of  slavery.  In  the  Northern 
nationality,  which  will  reform  itself  after  this  war  is  over, 
there  will,  I  think,  be  no  slave  State.  That  final  battle  of 
abolition  will  have  to  be  fought  among  a  people  apart,  and 
I  must  fear  that  while  it  lasts  their  national  prosperity  will 
not  be  great. 


CHAPTER  YII. 

THE  ARMY  OF  THE  NORTH. 

I  TRUST  that  it  may  not  be  thought  that  in  this  chapter  I 
am  going  to  take  upon  myself  the  duties  of  a  military  critic. 
I  am  well  aware  that  I  have  no  capacity  for  such  a  task,  and 
that  my  opinion  on  such  matters  would  be  worth  nothing. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  write  of  the  American  States  as 
they  were  when  I  visited  them,  and  to  leave  that  sub- 
ject of  the  American  army  untouched.  It  was  all  but  im- 
possible to  remain  for  some  months  in  the  Northern  States 
without  visiting  the  army.  It  was  impossible  to  join  in 
any  conversation  in  the  States  without  talking  about  the 
army.    It  was  impossible  to  make  inquiry  as  to  the  present 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


131 


and  future  condition  of  the  people  without  basing  such  in- 
quiries more  or  less  upon  the  doings  of  the  army.  If  a 
stranger  visit  Manchester  with  the  object  of  seeing  what 
sort  of  place  Manchester  is,  he  must  visit  the  cotton  mills 
and  printing  establishments,  though  he  may  have  no  taste 
for  cotton  and  no  knowledge  on  the  subject  of  calicoes. 
Under  pressure  of  this  kind  I  have  gone  about  from  one 
army  to  another,  looking  at  the  drilling  of  regiments,  of  the 
manceuvres  of  cavalry,  at  the  practice  of  artillery,  and  at 
the  inner  life  of  the  camps.  I  do  not  feel  that  I  am  in  any 
degree  more  fitted  to  take  the  command  of  a  campaign  than 
I  was  before  I  began,  or  even  more  fitted  to  say  who  can 
and  who  cannot  do  so.  But  I  have  obtained  on  my  own 
mind's  eye  a  tolerably  clear  impression  of  the  outward 
appearance  of  the  Northern  army;  I  have  endeavored  to 
learn  something  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  brought 
together,  and  of  its  cost  as  it  now  stands  ;  and  I  have 
learned — as  any  man  in  the  States  may  learn,  without  much 
trouble  or  personal  investigation — how  terrible  has  been 
the  peculation  of  the  contractors  and  officers  by  whom  that 
army  has  been  supplied.  Of  these  things,  writing  of  the 
States  at  this  moment,  I  must  say  something.  In  what  I 
shall  say  as  to  that  matter  of  peculation,  I  trust  that  I  may 
be  believed  to  have  spoken  without  personal  ill  feeling  or 
individual  malice. 

While  I  was  traveling  in  the  States  of  New  England 
and  in  the  Northwest,  I  came  across  various  camps  at 
which  young  regiments  were  being  drilled  and  new  regi- 
ments were  being  formed.  These  lay  in  our  way  as  we 
made  our  journeys,  and,  therefore,  we  visited  them;  but 
they  were  not  objects  of  any  very  great  interest.  The  men 
had  not  acquired  even  any  pretense  of  soldierlike  bearing. 
The  officers  for  the  most  part  had  only  just  been  selected, 
having  hardly  as  yet  left  their  civil  occupations,  and  any- 
thing like  criticism  was  disarmed  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
movement  which  had  called  the  men  together.  I  then 
thought,  as  I  still  think,  that  the  men  themselves  were 
actuated  by  proper  motives,  and  often  by  very  high  motives, 
in  joining  the  regiments.  No  doubt  they  looked  to  the  pay 
offered.  It  is  not  often  that  men  are  able  to  devote  them- 
selves to  patriotism  without  any  reference  to  their  personal 
circumstances.  A  man  has  got  before  him  the  necessity  of 
earning  his  bread,  and  very  frequently  the  necessity  of  earn- 


132 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


ing  the  biead  of  others  besides  himself.  This  comes  before 
him  not  only  as  his  first  duty,  but  as  the  very  law  of  his 
existence.  His  wages  are  his  life,  and  when  he  proposes  to 
himself  to  serve  his  country,  that  subject  of  payment  comes 
uppermost  as  it  does  when  he  proposes  to  serve  any  other 
master.  But  the  wages  given,  though  very  high  in  com- 
parison with  those  of  any  other  army,  have  not  been  of  a 
nature  to  draw  together  from  their  distant  homes,  at  so 
short  a  notice,  so  vast  a  cloud  of  men,  had  no  other  influ- 
ence been  at  work.  As  far  as  I  can  learn,  the  average  rate 
of  wages  in  the  country  since  the  war  began  has  been  about 
65  cents  a  day  over  and  beyond  the  workman's  diet.  I  feel 
convinced  that  I  am  putting  this  somewhat  too  low,  taking 
the  average  of  all  the  markets  from  which  the  labor  has 
been  withdrawn.  In  large  cities  labor  has  been  much 
higher  than  this,  and  a  considerable  proportion  of  the 
army  has  been  taken  from  large  cities.  But,  taking  65 
cents  a  day  as  the  average,  labor  has  been  worth  about  lY 
dollars  a  month  over  and  above  the  laborer's  diet.  In  the 
army  the  soldier  receives  13  dollars  a  month,  and  also  re- 
ceives his  diet  and  clothes;  in  addition  to  this,  in  many 
States,  6  dollars  a  month  have  been  paid  by  the  State  to 
the  wives  and  families  of  those  soldiers  who  have  left  wives 
and  families  in  the  States  behind  them.  Thus  for  the  mar- 
ried men  the  wages  given  by  the  army  have  been  2  dollars 
a  month,  or  less  than  61.  a  year,  more  than  his  earnings  at 
home,  and  for  the  unmarried  man  they  have  been  4  dollars 
a  month,  or  less  than  10^.  a  year,  below  his  earnings  at  home. 
But  the  army  also  gives  clothing  to  the  extent  of  3  dollars 
a  month.  This  would  place  the  unmarried  soldier,  in  a 
pecuniary  point  of  view,  worse  off  by  one  dollar  a  month, 
or  21.  10s.  a  year,  than  he  would  have  been  at  home;  and 
would  give  the  married  man  5  dollars  a  month,  or  12/.  a 
year,  more  than  his  ordinary  wages,  for  absenting  himself 
from  his  family.  I  cannot  think,  therefore,  that  the  pecu- 
niary attractions  have  been  very  great. 

Our  soldiers  in  England  enlist  at  wages  which  are  about 
one-half  that  paid  in  the  ordinary  labor  market  to  the 
class  from  whence  they  come.  But  labor  in  England  is 
uncertain,  whereas  in  the  States  it  is  certain.  In  England 
the  soldier  with  his  shilling  gets  better  food  than  the  la- 
borer with  his  two  shillings ;  and  the  Englishman  has  no 
objection  to  the  rigidity  of  that  discipline  which  is  so 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


133 


distasteful  to  an  American.  Moreover,  wno  in  England 
ever  dreamed  of  raising  600,000  new  troops  in  six  months, 
out  of  a  population  of  thirty  million  ?  But  this  has 
been  done  in  the  Northern  States  out  of  a  population 
of  eighteen  million.  If  England  were  invaded,  English- 
men would  come  forward  in  the  same  way,  actuated,  as 
I  believe,  by  the  same  high  motives.  My  object  here  is 
simply  to  show  that  the  American  soldiers  have  not  been 
drawn  together  by  the  prospect  of  high  wages,  as  has  been 
often  said  since  the  war  began. 

They  who  inquire  closely  into  the  matter  will  find  that 
hundreds  and  thousands  have  joined  the  army  as  privates, 
who  in  doing  so  have  abandoned  all  their  best  worldly  pros- 
pects, and  have  consented  to  begin  the  game  of  life  again, 
believing  that  their  duty  to  their  country  has  now  required 
their  services.  The  fact  has  been  that  in  the  different  States 
a  spirit  of  rivalry  has  been  excited.  Indiana  has  endeavored 
to  show  that  she  was  as  forward  as  Illinois ;  Pennsylvania 
has  been  unwilling  to  lag  behind  New  York ;  Massachusetts, 
who  has  always  struggled  to  be  foremost  in  peace,  has  de- 
sired to  boast  that  she  was  first  in  war  also  ;  the  smaller 
States  have  resolved  to  make  their  names  heard,  and  those 
which  at  first  were  backward  in  sending  troops  have  been 
shamed  into  greater  earnestness  by  the  public  voice.  There 
has  been  a  general  feeling  throughout  the  people  that  the 
thing  should  be  done — that  the  rebellion  must  be  put  down, 
and  that  it  must  be  put  down  by  arms.  Young  men  have 
been  ashamed  to  remain  behind;  and  their  elders,  acting 
under  that  glow  of  patriotism  which  so  often  warms  the 
hearts  of  free  men,  but  which,  perhaps,  does  not  often  re- 
main there  long  in  all  its  heat,  have  left  their  wives  and  have 
gone  also.  It  may  be  true  that  the  voice  of  the  majority 
has  been  coercive  on  many — that  men  have  enlisted  partly 
because  the  public  voice  required  it  of  them,  and  not  entirely 
through  the  promptings  of  individual  spirit.  Such  public 
voice  in  America  is  very  potent;  but  it  is  not,  I  think,  true 
that  the  army  has  been  gathered  together  by  the  hope  of 
high  wages. 

Such  was  my  opinion  of  the  men  when  I  saw  them  from 
State  to  State  clustering  into  their  new  regiments.  They 
did  not  look  like  soldiers;  but  I  regarded  them  as  men 
earnestly  intent  on  a  work  which  they  believed  to  be  right. 
Afterward  when  I  saw  them  in  their  camps,  amid  all  the 
VOL.  IL — J  2 


134 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


pomps  and  circumstances  of  glorious  war,  positively  con- 
verted into  troops,  armed  with  real  rifles  and  doing  actual 
military  service,  1  believed  the  same  of  them — but  cannot 
say  that  I  then  liked  them  so  well.  Good  motives  had 
brought  them  there.  They  were  the  same  men,  or  men  of 
the  same  class,  that  I  had  seen  before.  They  were  doing 
just  that  which  I  knew  they  would  have  to  do.  But  still  I 
found  that  the  more  I  saw  of  them,  the  more  I  lost  of  that 
respect  for  them  which  I  had  once  felt.  I  think  it  was  their 
dirt  that  chiefly  operated  upon  me.  Then,  too,  they  had 
hitherto  done  nothing,  and  they  seemed  to  be  so  terribly 
intent  upon  their  rations  1  The  great  boast  of  this  army 
was  that  they  eat  meat  twice  a  day,  and  that  their  daily 
supply  of  bread  was  more  than  they  could  consume. 

When  I  had  been  two  or  three  weeks  in  Washington,  I 
went  over  to  the  army  of  the  Potomac  and  spent  a  few  days 
with  some  of  the  officers.  I  had  on  previous  occasions 
ridden  about  the  camps,  and  had  seen  a  review  at  which 
General  McClellan  trotted  up  and  down  the  lines  with  all 
his  numerous  staff"  at  his  heels.  I  have  always  believed 
reviews  to  be  absurdly  useless  as  regards  the  purpose  for 
which  they  are  avowedly  got  up — that,  namely,  of  military 
inspection.  And  I  believed  this  especially  of  this  review. 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  commander-in-chief  ever  learns 
much  as  to  the  excellence  or  deficiencies  of  his  troops  by 
watching  their  manoeuvres  on  a  vast  open  space ;  but  I  felt 
sure  that  General  McClellan  had  learned  nothing  on  this 
occasion.  If  before  his  review  he  did  not  know  whether  his 
men  were  good  as  soldiers,  he  did  not  possess  any  such 
knowledge  after  the  review.  If  the  matter  may  be  regarded 
as  a  review  of  the  general — if  the  object  was  to  show  him 
off  to  the  men,  that  they  might  know  how  well  he  rode,  and 
how  grand  he  looked  with  his  staff"  of  forty  or  fifty  officers 
at  his  heels,  then  this  review  must  be  considered  as  satisfac- 
tory. General  McClellan  does  ride  very  well.  So  much  I 
learned,  and  no  more. 

It  was  necessary  to  have  a  pass  for  crossing  the  Potomac 
either  from  one  side  or  from  the  other,  and  such  a  pass  I  pro- 
cured from  a  friend  in  the  War-office,  good  for  the  whole 
period  of  my  sojourn  in  Washington.  The  wording  of  the 
pass  was  more  than  ordinarily  long,  as  it  recommended  me 
to  the  special  courtesy  of  all  whom  I  might  encounter;  but 
in  this  respect  it  was  injurious  to  me  rather  than  otherwise, 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


135 


as  every  picket  by  whom  I  was  stopped  found  it  necessary 
to  read  it  to  the  end.  The  paper  was  almost  invariably  re- 
turned to  me  without  a  word ;  but  the  musket  which  was 
not  unfrequently  kept  extended  across  my  horse's  nose  by 
the  reader's  comrade  would  be  withdrawn,  and  then  I  would 
ride  on  to  the  next  barrier.  It  seemed  to  me  that  these 
passes  were  so  numerous  and  were  signed  by  so  many  offi- 
cers that  there  could  have  been  no  risk  in  forging  them. 
The  army  of  the  Potomac,  into  which  they  admitted  the 
bearer,  lay  in  quarters  which  were  extended  over  a  length 
of  twenty  miles  up  and  down  on  the  Virginian  side  of  the 
river,  and  the  river  could  be  traversed  at  five  different  places. 
Crowds  of  men  and  women  were  going  over  daily,  and  no 
doubt  all  the  visitors  who  so  went  with  innocent  purposes 
were  provided  with  proper  passports  ;  but  any  whose  pur- 
poses were  not  innocent,  and  who  were  not  so  provided, 
could  have  passed  the  pickets  with  counterfeited  orders. 
This,  I  have  little  doubt,  was  done  daily.  Washington  was 
full  of  secessionists,  and  every  movement  of  the  Federal 
army  was  communicated  to  the  Confederates  at  Richmond, 
at  which  city  was  now  established  the  Congress  and  head- 
quarters of  the  Confederacy.  But  no  such  tidings  of  the 
Confederate  army  reached  those  in  command  at  Washington. 
There  were  many  circumstances  in  the  contest  which  led  to 
this  result,  and  I  do  not  think  that  General  McClellan  had 
any  power  to  prevent  it.  His  system  of  passes  certainly 
did  not  do  so. 

I  never  could  learn  from  any  one  what  was  the  true 
number  of  this  army  on  the  Potomac.  I  have  been  informed 
by  those  who  professed  to  know  that  it  contained  over 
200,000  men,  and  by  others  who  also  professed  to  know, 
that  it  did  not  contain  100,000.  To  me  the  soldiers  seemed 
to  be  innumerable,  hanging  like  locusts  over  the  whole  coun- 
try— a  swarm  desolating  everything  around  them.  Those 
pomps  and  circumstances  are  not  glorious  in  my  eyes.  They 
affect  me  with  a  melancholy  which  I  cannot  avoid.  Soldiers 
gathered  together  in  a  camp  are  uncouth  and  ugly  when  they 
are  idle;  and  when  they  are  at  work  their  work  is  worse 
than  idleness.  When  I  have  seen  a  thousand  men  together, 
moving  their  feet  hither  at  one  sound  and  thither  at  another, 
throwing  their  muskets  about  awkwardly,  prodding  at  the 
air  with  their  bayonets,  trotting  twenty  paces  here  and 
backing  ten  paces  there,  wheeling  round  in  uneven  lines, 


136 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


and  looking,  as  they  did  so,  miserably  conscious  of  the 
absurdity  of  their  own  performances,  I  have  always  been 
inclined  to  think  how  little  the  world  can  have  advanced  in 
civilization,  while  grown-up  men  are  still  forced  to  spend 
their  days  in  such  grotesque  performances.  Those  to  whom 
the  "pomps  and  circumstances"  are  dear — nay,  those  by 
whom  they  are  considered  simply  necessary — will  be  able  to 
confute  me  by  a  thousand  arguments.  I  readily  own  myself 
confuted.  There  must  be  soldiers,  and  soldiers  must  be 
taught.  But  not  the  less  pitiful  is  it  to  see  men  of  thirty 
undergoing  the  goose-step,  and  tortured  by  orders  as  to  the 
proper  mo.de  of  handling  a  long  instrument  which  is  half 
gun  and  half  spear.  In  the  days  of  Hector  and  Ajax,  the 
thing  was  done  in  a  more  picturesque  manner;  and  the  songs 
of  battle  should,  I  think,  be  confined  to  those  ages. 

The  ground  occupied  by  the  divisions  on  the  farther  or 
southwestern  side  of  the  Potomac  w^as,  as  I  have  said, 
about  twenty  miles  in  length  and  perhaps  seven  in  breadth. 
Through  the  whole  of  this  district  the  soldiers  were  every- 
where. The  tents  of  the  various  brigades  were  clustered 
together  in  streets,  the  regiments  being  divided  ;  and  the 
divisions  combining  the  brigades  lay  apart  at  some  distance 
from  each  other.  But  everywhere,  at  all  points,  there  were 
some  signs  of  military  life.  The  roads  were  continually 
thronged  with  wagons,  and  tracks  were  opened  for  horses 
wherever  a  shorter  way  might  thus  be  made  available.  On 
every  side  the  trees  were  falling  or  had  fallen.  In  some 
places  whole  woods  had  been  felled  with  the  express  pur- 
pose of  rendering  the  ground  impracticable  for  troops;  and 
firs  and  pines  lay  one  over  the  other,  still  covered  with  their 
dark,  rough  foliage,  as  though  a  mighty  forest  had  grown 
there  along  the  ground,  without  any  power  to  raise  itself 
toward  the  heavens.  In  other  places  the  trees  had  been 
chopped  ofi"  from  their  trunks  about  a  yard  from  the  ground, 
so  that  the  soldier  who  cut  it  should  have  no  trouble  in 
stooping,  and  the  tops  had  been  dragged  away  for  firewood 
or  for  the  erection  of  screens  against  the  wind.  Here  and 
there,  in  solitary  places,  there  were  outlying  tents,  looking 
as  though  each  belonged  to  some  military  recluse ;  and  in 
the  neighborhood  of  every  division  was  to  be  found  a  pho- 
tographing establishment  upon  wheels,  in  order  that  the 
men  might  send  home  to  their  sweethearts  pictures  of  them- 
selves in  their  martial  costumes. 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


I  wandered  about  through  these  camps  both  on  foot  and 
on  horseback  day  after  day ;  and  every  now  and  then  I 
would  come  upon  a  farm-house  that  was  still  occupied  by 
its  old  inhabitants.  Many  of  such  houses  had  been  deserted, 
and  were  now  held  by  the  senior  ofiQcers  of  the  army  ;  but 
some  of  the  old  families  remained,  living  in  the  midst  of 
this  scene  of  war  in  a  condition  most  forlorn.  As  for  any 
tillage  of  their  land,  that,  under  such  circumstances,  might 
be  pronounced  as  hopeless.  Nor  could  there  exist  encour- 
agement for  farm-work  of  any  kind.  Fences  had  been  taken 
down  and  burned  :  the  ground  had  been  overrun  in  every 
direction.  The  stock  had  of  course  disappeared  ;  it  had 
not  been  stolen,  but  had  been  sold  in  a  hurry  for  what  under 
such  circumstances  it  might  fetch.  What  farmer  could 
work  or  have  any  hope  for  his  land  in  the  middle  of  such  a 
crowd  of  soldiers  ?  But  yet  there  were  the  families.  Q'he 
women  were  in  their  houses,  and  the  children  playing  at 
their  doors ;  and  the  men,  with  whom  I  sometimes  sj  oke, 
would  stand  around  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets.  They 
knew  that  they  were  ruined  ;  they  expected  no  redress.  In 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  they  were  inimical  in  spirit  to  the 
soldiers  around  them.  And  yet  it  seemed  that  their  equa- 
nimity was  never  disturbed.  In  a  former  chapter  I  have 
spoken  of  a  certain  general — not  a  fighting  general  of  the 
army,  but  a  local  farming  general — who  spoke  loudly,  and 
with  many  curses,  of  the  injury  inflicted  on  him  by  the  se- 
cessionists. "With  that  exception  I  heard  no  loud  complaint 
of  personal  suffering.  These  Virginian  farmers  must  have 
been  deprived  of  everything — of  the  very  means  of  earning 
bread.  They  still  hold  by  their  houses,  though  they  were 
in  the  very  thick  of  the  war,  because  there  they  had  shelter 
for  their  families,  and  elsewhere  they  might  seek  it  in  vain. 
A  man  cannot  move  his  wife  and  children  if  he  have  no 
place  to  which  to  move  them,  even  though  his  house  be  in 
the  midst  of  disease,  of  pestilence,  or  of  battle.  So  it 
was  with  them  then,  but  it  seemed  as  though  they  were 
already  used  to  it. 

But  there  was  a  class  of  inhabitants  in  that  same  country 
to  whom  fate  had  been  even  more  unkind  than  to  those 
whom  I  saw.  The  lines  of  the  Northern  army  extended 
perhaps  seven  or  eight  miles  from  the  Potomac  ;  and  the 
lines  of  the  Confederate  army  were  distant  some  four  miles 
from  those  of  their  enemies.  There  was,  therefore,  an  in- 
YOL.  TI.— 12* 


138 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tervening  space  or  strip  of  ground,  about  four  miles  broad, 
which  might  be  said  to  be  no  man's  land.  It  was  no  man's 
land  as  to  military  possession,  but  it  was  still  occupied  by- 
many  of  its  old  inhabitants.  These  people  were  not  allowed 
to  pass  the  lines  either  of  one  army  or  of  the  other ;  or  if 
they  did  so  pass,  they  were  not  allowed  to  return  to  their 
homes.  To  these  homes  they  were  forced  to  cling,  and  there 
they  remained.  They  had  no  market ;  no  shops  at  which  to 
make  purchases,  even  if  they  had  money  to  buy ;  no  cus- 
tomers with  whom  to  deal,  even  if  they  had  produce  to  sell. 
They  had  their  cows,  if  they  could  keep  them  from  the 
Confederate  soldiers,  their  pigs  and  theiT  poultry;  and  on 
them  they  were  living — a  most  forlorn  life.  Any  advance 
made  by  either  party  must  be  over  their  homesteads.  In 
the  event  of  battle,  they  would  be  in  the  midst  of  it;  and 
in  the  mean  time  they  could  see  no  one,  hear  of  nothing, 
go  no  whither  beyond  the  limits  of  that  miserable  strip  of 
ground  ! 

The  earth  was  hard  with  frost  when  I  paid  my  visit  to 
tho  camp,  and  the  general  appearance  of  things  around  my 
friend's  quarters  was  on  that  account  cheerful  enough.  It 
was  the  mud  which  made  things  sad  and  wretched.  When 
the  frost  came  it  seemed  as  though  the  array  had  overcome 
one  of  its  worst  enemies.  Unfortunately  cold  weather  did 
not  last  long.  I  have  been  told  in  Washington  that  they 
rarely  have  had  so  open  a  season.  Soon  after  my  departure 
that  terrible  enemy  the  mud  came  back  upon  them  ;  but 
during  my  stay  the  ground  was  hard  and  the  weather  very 
sharp.  I  slept  in  a  tent,  and  managed  to  keep  my  body 
warm  by  an  enormous  overstructure  of  blankets  and  coats ; 
but  I  could  not  keep  my  head  warm.  Throughout  the  night 
I  had  to  go  down  like  a  fish  beneath  the  water  for  protec- 
tion, and  come  up  for  air  at  intervals,  half  smothered.  I 
had  a  stove  in  my  tent ;  but  the  heat  of  that,  when  lighted, 
was  more  terrible  than  the  severity  of  the  frost. 

The  tents  of  the  brigade  with  wdiich  I  was  staying  had 
been  pitched  not  without  an  eye  to  appearances.  They 
were  placed  in  streets  as  it  were,  each  street  having  its 
name,  and  between  them  screens  had  been  erected  of  fir  poles 
and  fir  branches,  so  as  to  keep  off  the  wind.  The  outside 
boundaries  of  the  nearest  regiment  were  ornamented  with 
arches,  crosses,  and  columns,  constructed  in  the  same  way; 
so  that  the  quarters  of  the  men  were  reached,  as  it  were, 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


139 


through  gateways.  The  whole  thing  was  pretty  enough  ; 
and  while  the  ground  was  hard  the  camp  was  picturesque, 
and  a  visit  to  it  was  not  unpleasant.  But  unfortunately  the 
ground  was  in  its  nature  soft  and  deep,  composed  of  red 
clay;  and  as  the  frost  went  and  the  wet  weather  came,  mud 
became  omnipotent  and  destroyed  all  prettiness.  And  1 
found  that  the  cold  weather,  let  it  be  ever  so  cold,  was  not 
severe  upon  the  men.  It  was  wet  which  they  feared  and 
had  cause  to  fear,  both  for  themselves  and  for  their  horses. 
:As  to  the  horses,  but  few  of  them  were  protected  by  any 
shelter  or  covering  whatsoever.  Through  both  frost  and 
wet  they  remained  out,  tied  to  the  wheel  of  a  wagon  or  to 
some  temporary  rack  at  which  they  were  fed.  In  England 
we  should  imagine  that  any  horse  so  treated  must  perish ; 
but  here  the  animal  seemed  to  stand  it.  Many  of  them 
were  miserable  enough  in  appearance,  but  nevertheless  they 
did  the  work  required  of  them.  I  have  observed  that  horses 
throughout  the  States  are  treated  in  a  hardier  manner  than 
is  usually  the  case  with  us. 

At  the  period  of  which  I  am  speaking — January,  1862 — 
the  health  of  the  army  of  the  Potomac  was  not  as  good  as 
it  had  been,  and  was  beginning  to  give  way  under  the  effects 
of  the  winter.  Measles  had  become  very  prevalent,  and 
also  small-pox,  though  not  of  a  virulent  description;  and 
men,  in  many  instances,  were  sinking  under  fatigue.  I  was 
informed  by  various  officers  that  the  Irish  regiments  were 
on  the  whole  the  most  satisfactory.  Not  that  they  made 
the  best  soldiers,  for  it  was  asserted  that  they  were  worse, 
as  soldiers,  than  the  Americans  or  Germans ;  not  that  they 
became  more  easily  subject  to  rule,  for  it  was  asserted  that 
they  were  unruly ;  but  because  they  were'  rarely  ill.  Dis- 
eases which  seized  the  American  troops  on  all  sides  seemed 
to  spare  them.  The  mortality  was  not  excessive,  but  the 
men  became  sick  and  ailing,  and  fell  under  the  doctor's 
hands. 

Mr.  Olmstead,  whose  name  is  well  known  in  England  as 
a  writer  on  the  Southern  States,  was  at  this  time  secretary 
to  a  sanitary  commission  on  the  army,  and  published  an  ab- 
stract of  the  results  of  the  inquiries  made,  on  which  I  believe 
perfect  reliance  may  be  placed.  This  inquiry  was  extended 
to  two  hundred  regiments,  which  were  presumed  to  be  in- 
cluded in  the  army  of  the  Potomac ;  but  these  regiments 
were  not  all  located  on  the  Yirginian  side  of  the  river,  and 


140 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


must  not  therefore  be  taken  as  belonging  exclusively  to  the 
divisions  of  which  I  have  been  speaking.  Mr.  Olmstead 
says  :  "The  health  of  our  armies  is  evidently  not  above  the 
average  of  armies  in  the  field.  The  mortality  of  the  army 
of  the  Potomac  during  the  summer  months  averaged  3J  per 
cent.,  and  for  the  whole  army  it  is  stated  at  5  per  cent." 
"Of  the  camps  inspected,  5  per  cent.,"  he  says,  "were  in 
admirable  order  ;  44  per  cent,  fairly  clean  and  well  policed. 
The  condition  of  26  per  cent,  was  negligent  and  slovenly, 
and  of  24  per  cent,  decidedly  bad,  filthy,  and  dangerous. 
Thus  50  per  cent,  were  either  negligent  and  slovenly,  or 
filthy  and  dangerous.  I  wonder  what  the  report  would 
have  been  had  Camp  Benton,  at  St.  Louis,  been  surveyed  I 
"  In  about  80  per  cent,  of  the  regiments  the  officers  claimed 
to  give  systematic  attention  to  the  cleanliness  of  the  men  ; 
but  it  is  remarked  that  they  rarely  enforced  the  washing  of 
the  feet,  and  not  always  of  the  head  and  neck."  I  wish  Mr. 
Olmstead  had  added  that  they  never  enforced  the  cutting 
of  the  hair.  No  single  trait  has  been  so  decidedly  disad- 
vantageous to  the  appearance  of  the  American  army  as  the 
long,  uncombed,  rough  locks  of  hair  which  the  men  have 
appeared  so  loath  to  abandon.  In  reading  the  above  one 
cannot  but  think  of  the  condition  of  those  other  twenty 
regiments ! 

According  to  Mr.  Olmstead  two-thirds  of  the  men  were 
native  born,  and  one-third  was  composed  of  foreigners. 
These  foreigners  are  either  Irish  or  German.  Had  a  simi- 
lar report  been  made  of  the  armies  in  the  West,  I  think  it 
would  have  been  seen  that  the  proportion  of  foreigners  was 
still  greater.  The  average  age  of  the  privates  was  some- 
thing under  twenty-five,  and  that  of  the  officers  thirty-four. 
I  may  here  add,  from  my  own  observation,  that  an  officer's 
rank  could  in  no  degree  be  predicated  from  his  age.  Gen- 
erals, colonels,  majors,  captains,  and  lieutenants  had  been 
all  appointed  at  the  same  time,  and  without  reference  to  age 
or  qualification.  Political  influence,  or  the  power  of  rais- 
ing recruits,  had  been  the  standard  by  which  military  rank 
was  distributed.  The  old  West  Point  officers  had  generally 
been  chosen  for  high  commands,  but  beyond  this  everything 
was  necessarily  new.  Young  colonels  and  ancient  captains 
abounded  without  any  harsh  feeling  as  to  the  matter  on 
either  side.  Indeed,  in  this  respect,  the  practice  of  the 
country  generally  was  simply  carried  out.     Fathers  and 


THE  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


141 


mothers  in  America  seem  to  obey  tlieir  sons  and  daughters 
naturally,  and  as  they  grow  old  become  the  slaves  of  their 
grandchildren. 

Mr.  Olmstead  says  that  food  was  found  to  be  universally 
good  and  abundant.  On  this  matter  Mr.  Olmstead  might 
have  spoken  in  stronger  language  without  exaggeration. 
The  food  supplied  to  the  American  armies  has  been  extrav- 
agantly good,  and  certainly  has  been  wastefully  abundant. 
Yery  much  has  been  said  of  the  cost  of  the  American  army, 
and  it  has  been  made  a  matter  of  boasting  that  no  army  so 
costly  has  ever  been  put  into  the  field  by  any  other  nation. 
The  assertion  is,  I  believe,  at  any  rate  true.  I  have  found 
it  impossible  to  ascertain  what  has  hitherto  been  expended 
on  the  army.  I  much  doubt  whether  even  Mr.  Chase,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or  Mr.  Stanton,  the  Secretary 
of  War,  know  themselves,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  Mr. 
Stanton's  predecessor  much  cared.  Some  approach,  how-  ^ 
ever,  may  be  reached  to  the  amount  actually  paid  in  wages 
and  for  clothes  and  diet;  and  I  give  below  a  statement 
which  I  have  seen  of  the  actual  annual  sum  proposed  to  be 
expended  on  these  heads,  presuming  the  army  to  consist  of 
600,000  men.  The  army  is  stated  to  contain  660,000  men, 
but  the  former  numbers  given  would  probably  be  found  to 
be  nearer  the  mark ; — 

Wages  of  privates,  including  sergeants  and 

corporals  .....  $86,640,000 

Salaries  of  regimental  officers  .          .  23,784,000 

Extra  wages  of  privates ;  extra  pay  to 
mounted  officers,  and  salary  to  officers 

above  the  rank  of  colonel          .          .  17,000,000 

$127,424,000 
or 

£25,484,000  sterling. 

To  this  must  be  added  the  cost  of  diet  and  clothing.  The 
food  of  the  men,  I  was  informed,  was  supplied  at  an  aver- 
age cost  of  17  cents  a  day,  which,  for  an  army  of  500,000 
men,  would  amount  to  £6,200,000  per  annum.  The  cloth- 
ing of  the  men  is  shown  by  the  printed  statement  of  their 
War  Department  to  amount  to  $3.00  a  month  for  a  period 
of  five  years.  That,  at  least,  is  the  amount  allowed  to  a 
private  of  infantry  or  artillery.  The  cost  of  the  cavalry 
uniforms  and  of  the  dress  of  the  non-commissioned  officers 


142 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


is  something  higher,  but  not  sufficiently  so  to  make  it 
necessary  to  make  special  provision  for  the  difference  in  a 
statement  so  rough  as  this.  At  $3. 00  a  month  the  clothing 
of  the  army  would  amount  to  £3,600,000.  The  actual  an- 
nual cost  would  therefore  be  as  follows : 

Salaries  and  wages  ....  £25,484,400 
Diet  of  the  soldiers  .  .  .  6,200,000 

Clothing  for  the  soldiers  .  .  .  3,600,000 

£35,280,400 

I  believe  that  these  figures  may  be  trusted,  unless  it  be  with 
reference  to  that  sum  of  $17,000,000,  or  £3,400,000,  which 
is  presumed  to  include  the  salaries  of  all  general  officers, 
with  their  staffs,  and  also  the  extra  wages  paid  to  soldiers 
in  certain  cases.  This  is  given  as  an  estimate,  and  may  be 
over  or  under  the  mark.  The  sum  named  as  the  cost  of 
clothing  would  be  correct,  or  nearly  so,  if  the  army  remained 
in  its  present  force  for  five  years.  If  it  so  remained  for 
only  one  year,  the  cost  would  be  one-fifth  higher.  It  must 
of  course  be  remembered  that  the  sum  above  named  includes 
simply  the  wages,  clothes,  and  food  of  the  men.  It  does 
not  comprise  the  purchase  of  arms,  horses,  ammunition,  or 
wagons;  the  forage  of  horses;  the  transport  of  troops,  or 
any  of  those  incidental  expenses  of  warfare  which  are 
always,  I  presume,  heavier  than  the  absolute  cost  of  the 
men,  and  which,  in  this  war,  have  been  probably  heavier 
than  in  any  war  ever  waged  on  the  face  of  God's  earth. 
Nor  does  it  include  that  terrible  item  of  peculation,  as  to 
which  I  will  say  a  word  or  two  before  I  finish  this  chapter. 

The  yearly  total  payment  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  of 
the  army  is  as  follows.  As  regards  the  officers,  it  must  be 
understood  that  this  includes  all  the  allowances  made  to 
them,  except  as  regards  those  on  the  staff.  The  sums  named 
apply  only  to  the  infantry  and  artillery.  The  pay  of  the 
cavalry  is  about  ten  per  cent,  higher: — 


Lieutenant-General^  .  .  •  .  .  £1850 

Major-General     .  .  .  .  .  1150 

Brigadier-General  .....  800 
Colonel    .  .  .  .  .  .  530 


General  Scott  alone  holds  that  rank  in  the  United  States  Army. 


TUB  NORTHERN  ARMY. 


143 


Lieutenant-Colonel*  .....  £475 

Major      ......  430 

Captain         ......  300 

First  Lieutenant  .....  265 

Second  Lieutenant     .....  245 

First  Sergeant     .....  48 

Sergeant        ......  40 

Corporal  ......  34 

Private          ......  31 


In  every  grade  named  the  pay  is,  I  believe,  higher  than 
that  given  by  us,  or,  as  I  imagine,  by  any  other  nation.  It 
is,  however,  probable  that  the  extra  allowances  paid  to  some 
of  our  higher  officers  when  on  duty  may  give  to  their 
positions  for  a  time  a  higher  pecuniary  remuneration.  It 
will  of  course  be  understood  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
American  army  answering  to  our  colonel  of  a  regiment. 
With  us  the  officer  so  designated  holds  a  nominal  com- 
mand of  high  dignity  and  emolument  as  a  reward  for  past 
services. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  my  visits  to  the  camps  of  the 
other  armies  in  the  field,  that  of  General  Halleck,  who  held 
his  headquarters  at  St.  Louis,  in  Missouri,  and  that  of  Gen- 
eral Buell,  who  was  at  Louisville,  in  Kentucky.  There 
was  also  a  fourth  army  under  General  Hunter,  in  Kansas, 
but  I  did  not  make  my  way  as  far  west  as  that.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  any  military  knowledge,  and  should  be  foolish 
to  attempt  military  criticism;  but  as  far  as  I  could  judge 
by  appearance,  I  should  say  that  the  men  in  Buell's  army 
were,  of  the  three,  in  the  best  order.  They  seemed  to  me 
to  be  cleaner  than  the  others,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  learn, 
were  in  better  health.  Want  of  discipline  and  dirt  have, 
no  doubt,  been  the  great  faults  of  the  regiments  generally, 
and  the  latter  drawback  may  probably  be  included  in  the 
former.  These  men  have  not  been  accustomed  to  act  under 
the  orders  of  superiors,  and  when  they  entered  on  the  serv- 
ice hardly  recognized  the  fact  that  they  would  have  to  do 
so  in  aught  else  than  in  their  actual  drill  and  fighting.  It 
is  impossible  to  conceive  any  class  of  men  to  whom  the 
necessary  discipline  of  a  soldier  would  come  with  more 
difficulty  than  to  an  American  citizen.  The  whole  training 
of  his  life  has  been  against  it.    He  has  never  known  respect 


A  colonel  and  lieutenant-colonel  are  attached  to  each  regiment. 


144 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


for  a  master,  or  reverence  for  men  of  a  higher  rank  than 
himself.  He  has  probably  been  made  to  work  hard  for  his 
wages  —  harder  than  an  Englishman  works — but  he  has 
been  his  employer's  equal.  The  language  between  them 
has  been  the  language  of  equals,  and  their  arrangement  as 
to  labor  and  wages  has  been  a  contract  between  equals. 
If  he  did  not  work  he  would  not  get  his  money — and  per- 
haps not  if  he  did.  Under  these  circumstances  he  has 
made  his  fight  with  the  world  ;  but  those  circumstances 
have  never  taught  him  that  special  deference  to  a  superior, 
which  is  the  first  essential  of  a  soldier's  duty.  But  probably 
in  no  respect  would  that  difficulty  be  so  severely  felt  as  in 
all  matters  appertaining  to  personal  habits.  Here  at  any 
rate  the  man  would  expect  to  be  still  his  own  master,  acting 
for  himself  and  independent  of  all  outer  control.  Our  Eng- 
lish Hodge,  when  taken  from  the  plow  to  the  camp,  would, 
probably,  submit  without  a  murmur  to  soap  and  water  and 
a  barber's  shears  ;  he  would  have  received  none  of  that 
education  which  would  prompt  him  to  rebel  against  such 
ordinances  ;  but  the  American  citizen,  who  for  awhile  ex- 
pects to  shake  hands  with  his  captain  whenever  he  sees  him, 
and  is  astonished  when  he  learns  that  he  must  not  offer  him 
drinks,  cannot  at  once  be  brought  to  understand  that  he  is 
to  be  treated  like  a  child  in  the  nursery;  that  he  must 
change  his  shirt  so  often,  wash  himself  at  such  and  such  in- 
tervals, and  go  through  a  certain  process  of  cleansing  his 
outward  garments  daily.  I  met  while  traveling  a  sergeant 
of  a  regiment  of  the  American  regulars,  and  he  spoke  of  the 
want  of  discipline  among  the  volunteers  as  hopeless.  But 
even  he  instanced  it  chiefly  by  their  want  of  cleanliness. 
"  They  wear  their  shirts  till  they  drop  off  their  backs,"  said 
he ;  "  and  what  can  you  expect  from  such  men  as  that 
I  liked  that  sergeant  for  his  zeal  and  intelligence,  and  also 
for  his  courtesy  when  he  found  that  I  was  an  Englishman ; 
for  previous  to  his  so  finding  he  had  begun  to  abuse  the 
English  roundly — but  I  did  not  quite  agree  with  him  about 
the  volunteers.  It  is  very  bad  that  soldiers  should  be  dirty, 
bad  also  that  they  should  treat  their  captains  with  famil- 
iarity, and  desire  to  exchange  drinks  with  the  majors.  But 
even  discipline  is  not  everything;  and  discipline  will  come 
at  last  even  to  the  American  soldiers,  distasteful  as  it  may 
be,  when  the  necessity  for  it  is  made  apparent.  But  these 
volunteers  have  great  military  virtues.    They  are  intelli- 


COURAGE  OF  THE  AMERICANS. 


145 


gent,  zealous  in  their  cause,  handy  with  arras,  willing 
enough  to  work  at  all  military  duties,  and  personally  brave. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  are  sickly,  and  tliere  has  been  a 
considerable  amount  of  drunkenness  among  them.  No 
man  who  has  looked  to  the  subject  can,  I  think,  doubt  that 
a  native  American  has  a  lower  physical  development  than 
an  Irishman,  a  German,  or  an  Englishman.  They  become 
old  sooner,  and  die  at  an  earlier  age.  As  to  that  matter 
of  drink,  I  do  not  think  that  much  need  be  said  against 
them.  English  soldiers  get  drunk  when  they  have  the 
means  of  doi|;ig  so,  and  American  soldiers  would  not  get 
drunk  if  the  means  were  taken  away  from  them.  A  little 
drunkenness  goes  a  long  way  in  a  camp,  and  ten  drunkards 
will  give  a  bad  name  to  a  company  of  a  hundred.  Let  any 
man  travel  with  twenty  men  of  whom  four  are  tipsy,  and 
on  leaving  them  he  will  tell  you  that  every  man  of  them 
was  a  drunkard. 

I  have  said  that  these  men  are  brave,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  they  are  so.  How  should  it  be  otherwise  with  men  of 
such  a  race  ?  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  courage,  one  of  which  is  very  common  and  the 
other  very  uncommon.  Of  the  latter  description  of  courage 
it  cannot  be  expected  that  much  should  be  found  among  the 
privates  of  any  army,  and  perhaps  not  very  many  examples 
among  the  officers.  It  is  a  courage  self-sustained,  based  on 
a  knowledge  of  the  right,  and  on  a  life-long  calculation  that 
any  results  coming  from  adherence  to  the  right  will  be  pref- 
erable to  any  that  can  be  produced  by  a  departure  from  it. 
This  is  the  courage  which  v/ill  enable  a  man  to  stand  his 
ground,  in  battle  or  elsewhere,  though  broken  worlds  should 
fall  around  him.  The  other  courage,  which  is  mainly  an 
affair  of  the  heart  or  blood  and  not  of  the  brain,  always 
requires  some  outward  support.  The  man  who  finds  him- 
self prominent  in  danger  bears  himself  gallantly,  because 
the  eyes-  of  many  will  see  him  ;  whether  as  an  old  man  he 
leads  an  army,  or  as  a  young  man  goes  on  a  forlorn  hope, 
or  as  a  private  carries  his  officer  on  his  back  out  of  the  fire, 
he  is  sustained  by  the  love  of  praise.  And  the  men  who 
are  not  individually  prominent  in  danger,  who  stand  their 
ground  shoulder  to  shoulder,  bear  themselves  gallantly  also, 
each  trusting  in  the  combined  strength  of  his  comrades. 
When  such  combined  courage  has  been  acquired,  that  use- 
ful courage  is  engendered  which  we  may  rather  call  confi- 
VOL.  II. — 13 


146 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


dcnce,  and  which  of  all  courage  is  the  most  serviceable  in 
the  army.  At  the  battle  of  Bull's  Run  the  army  of  the 
North  became  panic-stricken,  and  fled.  From  this  fact 
many  have  been  led  to  believe  that  the  American  soldiers 
would  not  fight  well,  and  that  they  could  not  be  brought  to 
stand  their  ground  under  fire.  This  I  think  has  been  an 
unfair  conclusion.  In  the  first  place,  the  history  of  the 
battle  of  Bull's  Run  has  yet  to  be  written  ;  as  yet  the  his- 
tory of  the  flight  only  has  been  given  to  us.  As  far  as  I 
can  learn,  the  Northern  soldiers  did  at  first  fight  well ;  so 
well,  that  the  army  of  the  South  believed  itself  to  be  beaten. 
But  a  panic  was  created — at  first,  as  it  seems,  among  the 
teamsters  and  wagons.  A  cry  was  raised,  and  a  rush  was 
made  by  hundreds  of  drivers  with  their  carts  and  horses; 
and  then  men  who  had  never  seen  war  before,  who  had  not 
yet  had  three  months'  drilling  as  soldiers,  to  whom  the  tur- 
moil of  that  day  must  have  seemed  as  though  hell  were 
opening  upon  them,  joined  themselves  to  the  general  clamor 
and  fled  to  Washington,  believing  that  all  was  lost.  But 
at  the  same  time  the  regiments  of  the  enemy  were  going 
through  the  same  farce  in  the  other  direction  1  It  was  a 
battle  between  troops  who  knew  nothing  of  battles;  of  sol- 
diers who  were  not  yet  soldiers.  That  individual  high- 
minded  courage  which  would  have  given  to  each  individual 
recruit  the  self-sustained  power  against  a  panic,  which  is  to 
be  looked  for  in  a  general,  was  not  to  be  looked  for  in 
them.  Of  the  other  courage  of  which  I  have  spoken,  there 
was  as  much  as  the  circumstances  of  the  battle  would  allow. 

On  subsequent  occasions  the  men  have  fought  well.  We 
should,  I  think,  admit  that  they  have  fought  very  well 
when  we  consider  how  short  has  been  their  practice  at  such 
work.  At  Somerset,  at  Fort  Henry,  at  Fort  Donelson,  at 
Corinth,  the  men  behaved  with  courage,  standing  well  to 
their  arms,  though  at  each  place  the  slaughter  among  them 
was  great.  They  have  always  gone  well  into  fire,  and  have 
generally  borne  themselves  well  under  fire.  I  am  convinced 
that  we  in  England  can  make  no  greater  mistake  than 
to  suppose  that  the  Americans  as  soldiers  are  deficient  in 
courage. 

But  now  I  must  come  to  a  matter  in  which  a  terrible  de- 
ficiency has  been  shown,  not  by  the  soldiers,  but  by  those 
whose  duty  it  has  been  to  provide  for  the  soldiers.  It  is 
impossible  to  speak  of  the  army  of  the  North  and  to  leave 


TUE  VAN  WYCK  COMMITTEE.  147 

untouched  that  hideous  subject  of  array  contracts.  And  I 
think  myself  the  more  specially  bound  to  allude  to  it  be- 
cause I  feel  that  the  iniquities  which  have  prevailed  prove 
with  terrible  earnestness  the  demoralizing  power  of  that 
dishonesty  among  men  in  high  places,  which  is  the  one 
great  evil  of  the  American  States.  It  is  there  that  the  de- 
ticiency  exists,  which  must  be  supplied  before  the  public 
men  of  the  nation  can  take  a  high  rank  among  other  public 
men.  There  is  the  gangrene,  which  must  be  cut  out  before 
the  government,  as  a  government,  can  be  great.  To  make 
money  is  the  one  thing  needful,  and  men  have  been  anxious 
to  meddle  with  the  affairs  of  government,  because  there 
might  money  be  made  with  the  greatest  ease.  "Make 
money,"  the  Roman  satirist  said;  "make  it  honestly  if  you 
can,  but  at  any  rate  make  money."  That  first  counsel 
would  be  considered  futile  and  altogether  vain  by  those 
who  have  lately  dealt  with  the  public  wants  of  the  American 
States. 

This  is  bad  in  a  most  fatal  degree,  not  mainly  because 
men  in  high  places  have  been  dishonest,  or  because  the 
government  has  been  badly  served  by  its  own  paid  officers. 
That  men  in  high  places  shoiild  be  dishonest,  and  that  the 
people  should  be  cheated  by  their  rulers,  is  very  bad.  But 
there  is  worse  than  this.  The  thing  becomes  so  common, 
and  so  notorious,  that  the  American  world  at  large  is  taught 
to  believe  that  dishonesty  is  in  itself  good.  "It  behoves  a 
man  to  be  smart,  sir  I"  Till  the  opposite  doctrine  to  that 
be  learned ;  till  men  in  America — ay,  and  in  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa — can  learn  that  it  specially  behoves  a  man  not  to 
be  smart,  they  will  have  learned  little  of  their  duty  toward 
God,  and  nothing  of  their  duty  toward  their  neighbor. 

In  the  instances  of  fraud  against  the  States  government 
to  which  I  am  about  to  allude,  I  shall  take  all  my  facts  from 
the  report  made  to  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Wash- 
ington by  a  committee  of  that  House  in  December,  1861. 
"Mr.  Washburne,  from  the  Select  Committee  to  inquire  into 
the  Contracts  of  the  Government,  made  the  following  Re- 
port." That  is  the  heading  of  the  pamphlet.  The  com- 
mittee was  known  as  the  Van  Wyck  Committee,  a  gentle- 
man of  that  name  having  acted  as  chairman. 

The  committee  first  went  to  New  York,  and  began  their 
inquiries  with  reference  to  the  purchase  of  a  steamboat 
called  the  "Catihne."  In  this  case  a  certain  Captain  Com- 


148 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


stock  had  been  designated  from  Washington  as  the  agent 
to  be  trusted  in  the  charter  or  purchase  of  the  vessel.  He 
agreed  on  behalf  of  the  government  to  hire  that  special 
boat  for  2000/.  a  mouth  for  three  mouths,  having  given  in- 
formation to  friends  of  his  on  the  matter,  which  enabled 
them  to  purchase  it  out  and  out  for  less  than  4000/.  These 
friends  were  not  connected  with  shipping  matters,  but  were 
lawyers  and  hotel  proprietors.  The  committee  conclude 
''that  the  vessel  was  chartered  to  the  government  at  an  un- 
conscionable price;  and  that  Captain  Comstock,  by  whom 
this  was  effected,  while  enjoying  the  peculiar  confidence  of 
the  government,  was  acting  for  and  in  concert  with  the 
parties  who  chartered  the  vessel,  and  was  in  fact  their 
agent."  But  the  report  does  not  explain  why  Captain 
Comstock  was  selected  for  this  work  by  authority  from 
Washington,  nor  does  it  recommend  that  he  be  punished. 
It  does  not  appear  that  Captain  Comstock  had  ever  been 
in  the  regular  service  of  the  government,  but  that  he  had 
been  master  of  a  steamer. 

In  the  next  place  one  Starbuck  is  employed  to  buy  ships. 
As  a  government  agent  he  buys  two  for  1300/.  and  sells 
them  to  the  government  for  2900/.  The  vessels  themselves, 
when  delivered  at  the  navy  yard,  were  found  to  be  totally 
unfit  for  the  service  for  which  they  had  been  purchased. 
But  why  was  Starbuck  employed,  when,  as  appears  over 
and  over  again  in  the  report,  New  York  was  full  of  paid 
government  servants  ready  and  fit  to  do  the  work  ?  Star- 
buck  was  merely  an  agent,  and  who  will  believe  that  he 
was  allowed  to  pocket  the  whole  difference  of  1600/.  ?  The 
greater  part  of  the  plunder  was,  however,  in  this  case  re- 
fuuded. 

Then  we  come  to  the  case  of  Mr.  George  D.  Morgan, 
brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Welles,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
I  have  spoken  of  this  gentleman  before,  and  of  his  singular 
prosperity.  He  amassed  a  large  fortune  in  five  months,  as 
a  government  agent  for  the  purchase  of  vessels,  he  having 
been  a  wholesale  grocer  by  trade.  This  gentleman  had  had 
no  experience  whatsoever  with  reference  to  ships.  It  is 
shown  by  the  evidence  that  he  had  none  of  the  requisite 
knowledge,  and  that  there  were  special  servants  of  the 
government  in  New  York  at  that  time,  sent  there  specially 
for  such  services  as  these,  who  were  in  every  way  trust- 
worthy, and  who  had  the  requisite  knowledge.    Yet  Mr. 


THE  VAN  WYCK  COMMITTEE. 


149* 


Morgan  was  placed  in  this  position  by  his  brother-in-law, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  in  that  capacity  made  about 
20,000/.  in  five  months,  all  of  which  was  paid  by  the  govern- 
ment, as  is  well  shown  to  have  been  the  fact  in  the  report 
before  me.  One  result  of  such  a  mode  ef  agency  is  given; 
one  other  result,  I  mean,  besides  the  20,000Z.  put  into  the 
pocket  of  the  brother  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  A 
ship  called  the  "Stars  and  Stripes"  was  bought  by  Mr. 
Morgan  for  11,000/.,  which  had  been  built  some  months 
before  for  TOOOZ.  This  vessel  was  bought  from  a  company 
which  was  blessed  with  a  president.  The  president  made 
the  bargain  with  the  government  agent,  but  insisted  on 
keeping  back  from  his  own  company  2000/.  out  of  the 
11,000/.  for  expenses  incident  to  the  purchase.  The  com- 
pany did  not  like  being  mulcted  of  its  prey,  and  growled 
heavily;  but  their  president  declared  that  such  bargains 
were  not  got  at  Washington  for  nothing.  Members  of  Con- 
gress had  to  be  paid  to  assist  in  such  things.  At  least  he 
could  not  reduce  his  little  private  bill  for  such  assistance 
below  1600/.  He  had,  he  said,  positively  paid  out  so  much 
to  those  venal  members  of  Congress,  and  had  made  nothing 
for  himself  to  compensate  him  for  his  own  exertions.  When 
this  president  came  to  be  examined,  he  admitted  that  he  had 
really  made  no  payments  to  members  of  Congress.  His 
own  capacity  had  been  so  great  that  no  such  assistance  had 
been  found  necessary.  But  he  justified  his  charge  on  the 
ground  that  the  sum  taken  by  him  was  no  more  than  the 
company  might  have  expected  him  to  lay  out  on  members 
of  Congress,  or  on  ex-members  who  are  specially  mentioned, 
had  he  not  himself  carried  on  the  business  with  such  con- 
summate discretion  I  It  seems  to  me  that  the  members  or 
ex-members  of  Congress  were  shamefully  robbed  in  this 
matter. 

The  report  deals  manfully  with  Mr.  Morgan,  showing  that 
for  five  months'  work  —  which  work  he  did  not  do  and  did 
not  know  how  to  do  —  he  received  as  large  a  sum  as  the 
President's  salary  for  the  whole  Presidential  term  of  four 
years.  So  much  better  is  it  to  be  an  agent  of  government 
than  simply  an  officer !  And  the  committee  adds,  that  they 
"do  not  find  in  this  transaction  the  less  to  censure  in  the 
fact  that  this  arrangement  between  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  and  Mr.  Morgan  was  one  between  brothers-in-law." 
After  that  who  will  believe  that  Mr.  Morgan  had  the  whole 
VOL.  IL— 13* 


•150 


NORTH  AMERICA- 


of  that  20,000Z.  for  himself?  And  yet  Mr.  Welles  still  re- 
mains Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  has  justified  the  whole 
transaction  in  an  explanation  admitting  everything,  and 
which  is  considered  by  his  friends  to  be  an  able  State  paper. 
"It  behoves  a  man  to  be  smart,  sir."  Mr.  Morgan  and 
Secretary  Welles  will  no  doubt  be  considered  by  their  own 
party  to  have  done  their  duty  well  as  high-trading  public 
functionaries.  The  faults  of  Mr.  Morgan  and  of  Secretary 
Welles  are  nothing  to  us  in  England;  but  the  light  in 
which  such  faults  may  be  regarded  by  the  American  people 
is  much  to  us. 

I  will  now  go  on  to  the  case  of  a  Mr.  Cummings.  Mr. 
Cummings,  it  appears,  had  been  for  many  years  the  editor 
of  a  newspaper  in  Philadelphia,  and  had  been  an  intimate 
political  friend  and  ally  of  Mr.  Cameron.  Now  at  the 
time  of  which  I  am  writing,  April,  1861,  Mr.  Cameron  was 
Secretary  of  War,  and  could  be  very  useful  to  an  old  po- 
litical ally  living  in  his  own  State.  The  upshot  of  the 
present  case  will  teach  us  to  think  well  of  Mr.  Cameron's 
gratitude. 

In  April,  1861,  stores  were  wanted  for  the  army  at  Wash- 
ington, and  Mr.  Cameron  gave  an  order  to  his  old  friend 
Cummings  to  expend  2,000,000  dollars,  pretty  much  accord- 
ing to  his  fancy,  in  buying  stores.  Governor  Morgan,  the 
Governor  of  New  York  State,  and  a  relative  of  our  other 
friend  Morgan,  was  joined  with  Mr.  Cummings  in  this  com- 
mission, Mr.  Cameron  no  doubt  having  felt  himself  bound 
to  give  the  friends  of  his  colleague  at  the  Navy  a  chance. 
Governor  Morgan  at  once  made  over  his  right  to  his  rela- 
tive ;  but  better  things  soon  came  in  Mr.  Morgan's  way,  and 
he  relinquished  his  share  in  this  partnership  at  an  early  date. 
In  this  transaction  he  did  not  himself  handle  above  25,000 
dollars.  Then  the  whole  job  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Cameron's  old  political  friend. 

The  2,000,000  dollars,  or  400,000/.,  were  paid  into  the 
hands  of  certain  government  treasurers  at  New  York,  but 
they  had  orders  to  honor  the  draft  of  the  political  friend  of 
the  Secretary  of  War,  and  consequently  50,000/.  was  imme- 
diately withdrawn  by  Mr.  Cummings,  and  with  this  he  went 
to  work.  It  is  shown  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  business ; 
that  he  employed  a  clerk  from  Albany  whom  he  did  not 
know,  and  confided  to  this  clerk  the  duty  of  buying  such 
stores  as  were  bought ;  that  this  clerk  was  recommended  to 


THE  CUMMINGS  PURCHASES. 


151 


him  by  Mr.  Weed,  the  editor  of  a  newspaper  at  Albany, 
who  is  known  in  the  States  as  the  special  political  friend  of 
Mr.  Seward,  the  Secretary  of  State;  and  that  in  this  way 
he  spent  32,000/.  He  bought  linen  pantaloons  and  straw 
hats  to  the  amount  of  4200/.,  because  he  thought  the  sol- 
diers looked  hot  in  the  warm  weather;  but  he  afterward 
learned  that  they  were  of  no  use.  He  bought  groceries  of 
a  hardware  dealer  named  Davidson,  at  Albany,  that  town 
whence  came  Mr.  Weed's  clerk.  He  did  not  know  what 
was  Davidson's  trade,  nor  did  he  know  exactly  what  he  was 
going  to  buy  ;  but  Davidson  proposed  to  sell  him  something 
which  Mr.  Cummings  believed  to  be  some  kind  of  provisions, 
and  he  bought  it.  He  did  not  know  for  how  much — whether 
over  2000Z.  or  not.  He  never  saw  the  articles,  and  had  no 
knowledge  of  their  quality.  It  was  out  of  the  question 
that  he  should  have  such  knowledge,  as  he  naively  remarks. 
His  clerk  Humphreys  saw  the  articles.  He  presumed  they 
were  brought  from  Albany,  but  did  not  know.  He  after- 
ward bought  a  ship — or  two  or  three  ships.  He  inspected 
one  ship  "by  a  mere  casual  visit:"  that  is  to  say,  he  did  not 
examine  her  boilers ;  he  did  not  know  her  tonnage,  but  he 
took  the  word  of  the  seller  for  everything.  He  could  not 
state  the  terms  of  the  charter,  or  give  the  substance  of  it. 
He  had  had  no  former  experience  in  buying  or  chartering 
ships.  He  also  bought  15,000  pairs  of  shoes  at  only  25 
cents  (or  one  shilling)  a  pair  more  than  their  proper  price. 
He  bought  them  of  a  Mr.  Hall,  who  declares  that  he  paid 
Mr.  Cummings  nothing  for  the  job,  but  regarded  it  as  a 
return  for  certain  previous  favors  conferred  by  him  on  Mr. 
Cummings  in  the  occasional  loans  of  100/.  or  200/. 

At  the  end  of  the  examination  it  appears  that  Mr.  Cum- 
mings still  held  in  his  hand  a  slight  balance  of  28,000/.,  of 
which  he  had  forgotten  to  make  mention  in  the  body  of  his 
own  evidence.  This  item  seems  to  have  been  overlooked 
by  him  in  his  testimony,"  says  the  report.  And  when  the 
report  was  made,  nothing  had  yet  been  learned  of  the  des- 
tiny of  this  small  balance. 

Then  the  report  gives  a  list  of  the  army  supplies  miscel- 
laneously purchased  by  Mr.  Cummings:  280  dozen  pints  of 
ale  at  9^?.  (jd.  a  dozen :  a  lot  of  codfish  and  herrings ;  200 
boxes  of  cheeses  and  a  large  assortment  of  butter;  some 
tongues;  straw  hats  and  linen  ''pants;"  23  barrels  of 
pickles;  25  casks  of  Scotch  ale,  price  not  stated;  a  lot  of 


152 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


London  porter,  price  not  stated;  and  some  Hall  carbines 
of  which  I  must  say  a  word  more  further  on.  It  should  be 
remembered  that  no  requisition  had  come  from  the  army  for 
any  of  the  articles  named ;  that  the  purchase  of  herrings 
and  straw  hats  was  dictated  solely  by  the  discretion  of 
Cummings  and  his  man  Humphreys,  or,  as  is  more  proba- 
ble, by  the  fact  that  some  other  person  had  such  articles  by 
him  for  sale ;  and  that  the  government  had  its  own  estab- 
lished officers  for  the  supply  of  things  properly  ordered  by 
military  requisition.  These  very  same  articles  also  were 
apparently  procured,  in  the  first  place,  as  a  private  specula- 
tion, and  were  made  over  to  the  government  on  the  failure 
of  that  speculation.  "  Some  of  the  above  articles,"  says  the 
report,  "were  shipped  by  the  Catiline,  which  was  probably 
loaded  on  private  account,  and,  not  being  able  to  obtain  a 
clearance,  was,  in  some  way,  through  Mr.  Cummings,  trans- 
ferred over  to  the  government — Scotch  ale,  London  porter, 
selected  herrings,  and  all."  The  italics,  as  well  as  the 
words,  are  taken  from  the  report. 

This  was  the  confidential  political  friend  of  the  Secretary 
of  War,  by  whom  he  was  intrusted  with  400,000/.  of  public 
money  I  Twenty-eight  thousand  pounds  had  not  been  ac- 
counted for  when  the  report  was  made,  and  the  army  sup- 
plies were  bought  after  the  fashion  above  named.  That 
Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Cameron,  has  since  left  the  cabinet ; 
but  he  has  not  been  turned  out  in  disgrace ;  he  has  been 
nominated  as  Minister  to  Russia,  and  the  world  has  been 
told  that  there  was  some  difl'erence  of  opinion  between  him 
and  his  colleagues  respecting  slavery  !  Mr.  Cameron,  in 
some  speech  or  paper,  declared  on  his  leaving  the  cabinet 
that  he  had  not  intended  to  remain  long  as  Secretary  of 
War.    This  assertion,  I  should  think,  must  have  been  true. 

And  now  about  the  Hall  carbines,  as  to  which  the  gentle- 
men on  this  committee  tell  their  tale  with  an  evident  delight 
in  the  richness  of  its  incidents  which  at  once  puts  all  their 
readers  in  accord  with  them.  There  were  altogether  some 
five  thousand  of  these,  all  of  which  the  government  sold  to 
a  Mr.  Eastman  in  June,  1861,  for  14s.  each,  as  perfectly 
useless,  and  afterward  bought  in  August  for  4/.  88.  each, 
about  4s.  a  carbine  having  been  expended  in  their  repair  in 
the  mean  time.  But  as  regards  190  of  these  now  famous 
weapons,  it  must  be  explained  they  had  been  sold  by  the 
government  as  perfectly  useless,  and  at  a  nominal  price, 


THE  FREMONT  CONTRACTS. 


153 


previously  to  this  second  sale  made  by  the  j^overnment  to 
Mr.  Eastman.  They  had  been  so  sold,  and  then,  in  April, 
1861,  they  had  been  bought  again  for  the  government  by 
the  indefatigable  Cummings  for  3^.  each.  Then  they  were 
again  sold  as  useless  for  14s.  each  to  Eastman,  and  instantly 
rebought  on  behalf  of  the  government  for  41.  8s.  each  1 
Useless  for  war  purposes  they  may  have  been,  but  as  articles 
of  commerce  it  must  be  confessed  that  they  were  very  serv- 
iceable. 

This  last  purchase  was  made  by  a  man  named  Stevens  on 
behalf  of  General  Fremont,  who  at  that  time  commanded 
the  army  of  the  United  States  in  Missouri.  Stevens  had 
been  employed  by  General  Fremont  as  an  agent  on  the 
behalf  of  government,  as  is  shown  with  clearness  in  the  re- 
port, and  on  hearing  of  these  muskets  telegraphed  to  the 
general  at  once:  "I  have  6000  Hall's  rifled  cast-steel 
muskets,  breach-loading,  new,  at  22  dollars."  General  Fre- 
mont telegraphed  back  instantly:  "I  will  take  the  whole 
5000  carbines.  ...  I  will  pay  all  extra  charges."  .... 
And  so  the  purchase  was  made.  The  muskets,  it  seems, 
were  not  absolutely  useless  even  as  weapons  of  war.  "Con- 
sidering the  emergency  of  the  times,"  a  competent  witness 
considered  them  to  be  worth  "  10  or  12  dollars."  The  gov- 
ernment had  been  as  much  cheated  in  selling  them  as  it  had 
in  buying  them.  But  the  nature  of  the  latter  transaction  is 
shown  by  the  facts  that  Stevens  was  employed,  though 
irresponsibly  employed,  as  a  government  agent  by  General 
Fremont ;  that  he  bought  the  muskets  in  that  character 
himself,  making  on  the  transaction  11.  18s.  on  each  musket; 
and  that  the  same  man  afterward  appeared  as  an  aid-de- 
camp on  General  Fremont's  staff.  General  Fremont  had  no 
authority  himself  to  make  such  a  purchase,  and  when  the 
money  was  paid  for  the  first  installment  of  the  arms,  it  was 
so  paid  by  the  special  order  of  General  Fremont  himself  out 
of  moneys  intended  to  be  applied  to  other  purposes.  The 
money  was  actually  paid  to  a  gentleman  known  at  Fre- 
mont's headquarters  as  his  special  friend,  and  was  then  paid 
in  that  irregular  way  because  this  friend  desired  that  that 
special  bill  should  receive  immediate  payment.  After  that, 
who  can  believe  that  Stevens  was  himself  allowed  to  pocket 
the  whole  amount  of  the  plunder  ? 

There  is  a  nice  little  story  of  a  clergyman  in  New  York 
who  sold,  for  iOl.  and  certain  further  contingencies,  the 


154 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


right  to  furnish  200  cavalry  horses ;  but  I  should  make  this 
too  long  if  I  told  all  the  nice  little  stories.  As  the  frauds 
at  St.  Louis  were,  if  not  in  fact  the  most  monstrous,  at  any 
rate  the  most  monstrous  which  have  as  yet  been  brought  to 
the  light,  I  cannot  finish  this  account  without  explaining 
sometliing  of  what  was  going  on  at  that  Western  Paradise 
in  those  halcyon  days  of  General  Fremont. 

General  Fremont,  soon  after  reaching  St.  Louis,  under- 
took to  build  ten  forts  for  the  protection  of  that  city.  These 
forts  have  since  been  pronounced  as  useless,  and  the  whole 
measure  has  been  treated  with  derision  by  officers  of  his  own 
army.  But  the  judgment  displayed  in  the  matter  is  a  mili- 
tary question  wath  which  I  do  not  presume  to  meddle.  Even 
if  a  general  be  wrong  in  such  a  matter,  his  character  as  a 
man  is  not  disgraced  by  such  error.  But  the  manner  of 
building  them  was  the  affair  with  which  Mr.  Yan  Wyck's 
Committee  had  to  deal.  It  seems  that  five  of  the  forts,  the 
five  largest,  w^ere  made  under  the  orders  of  a  certain  Major 
Kappner,  at  a  cost  of  12,000Z.,  and  that  the  other  five  could 
have  been  built  at  least  for  the  same  sum.  Major  Kappner 
seems  to  have  been  a  good  and  honest  public  servant,  and 
therefore  quite  unfit  for  the  superintendence  of  such  work  at 
St.  Louis.  The  other  five  smaller  forts  were  also  in  prog- 
ress, the  works  on  them  having  been  continued  from  1st 
of  September  to  25th  of  September,  1861 ;  but  on  the  25th 
of  September  General  Fremont  himself  gave  special  orders 
that  a  contract  should  be  made  with  a  man  named  Beard,  a 
Californian,  who  had  followed  him  from  California  to  St. 
Louis.  This  contract  is  dated  the  25th  of  September.  But 
nevertheless  the  work  specified  in  that  contract  was  done 
previous  to  that  date,  and  most  of  the  money  paid  was  paid 
previous  to  that  date.  The  contract  did  not  specify  any 
lump  sum,  but  agreed  that  the  work  should  be  paid  for  by 
the  yard  and  by  the  square  foot.  No  less  a  sum  was  paid 
to  Beard  for  this  work — the  cormorant  Beard,  as  the  report 
calls  him — than  24,200^.,  the  last  payment  only,  amounting 
to  4000Z.,  having  been  made  subsequent  to  the  date  of  the 
contract.  Twenty  thousand  two  hundred  pounds  was  paid 
to  Beard  before  the  date  of  the  contract !  The  amounts 
were  paid  at  five  times,  and  the  last  four  payments  were 
made  on  the  personal  order  of  General  Fremont.  This 
Beard  was  under  no  bond,  and  none  of  the  officers  of  the 
government  knew  anything  of  the  terms  under  which  he  was 


THE  FREMONT  CONTRACTS. 


155 


working.  On  the  14th  of  October  General  Fremont  was 
ordered  to  discontinue  these  works,  and  to  abstain  from 
making  any  further  payments  on  tlieir  account.  But,  dis- 
obeying this  order,  he  directed  his  quartermaster  to  pay 
a  further  sum  of  4000Z.  to  Beard  out  of  the  first  sums  he 
should  receive  from  Washington,  he  then  being  out  of 
money.  This,  however,  was  not  paid.  "  It  must  be  un- 
derstood," says  the  report,  "  that  every  dollar  ordered  to  be 
paid  by  General  Fremont  on  account  of  these  works  was 
diverted  from  a  fund  specially  appropriated  for  another  pur- 
pose." And  then  again :  "  The  money  appropriated  by  Con- 
gress to  subsist  and  clothe  and  transport  our  armies  was 
then,  in  utter  contempt  of  all  law  and  of  the  army  regula- 
tions, as  well  as  in  defiance  of  superior  authority,  ordered 
to  be  diverted  from  its  lawful  purpose  and  turned  over  to 
the  cormorant  Beard.  While  he  had  received  HO, 000  dol- 
lars (24,200Z.)  from  the  government,  it  will  be  seen  from 
the  testimony  of  Major  Kappner  that  there  had  only  been 
paid  to  the  honest  German  laborers,  who  did  the  work  on 
the  first  five  forts  built  under  his  directions,  the  sum  of 
15,500  dollars,  (3100?.,)  leaving  from  40,000  to  50,000  dol- 
lars (8000Z.  to  10,000/.)  still  due  ;  and  while  these  laborers, 
whose  families  were  clamoring  for  bread,  were  besieging 
the  quartermaster's  department  for  their  pay,  this  infamous 
contractor  Beard  is  found  following  up  the  army  and  in  the 
confidence  of  the  major-general,  who  gives  him  orders  for 
large  purchases,  which  could  only  have  been  legally  made 
through  the  quartermaster's  department."  After  that,  who 
will  believe  that  all  the  money  went  into  Beard's  pocket  ? 
Why  should  General  Fremont  have  committed  every  con- 
ceivable breach  of  order  against  his  government,  merely 
with  the  view  of  favoring  such  a  man  as  Beard  ? 

The  collusion  of  the  Quartermaster  M'Instry  with  fraud- 
ulent knaves  in  the  purchase  of  horses  is  then  proved. 
M'Instry  was  at  this  time  Fremont's  quartermaster  at  St. 
Louis.  I  cannot  go  through  all  these.  A  man  of  the  name 
of  Jim  Neil  comes  out  in  beautiful  pre-eminence.  No 
dealer  in  horses  could  get  to  the  quartermaster  except 
through  Jim  Neil,  or  some  such  go-between.  The  quar- 
termaster contracted  with  Neil  and  Neil  with  the  owners 
of  horses;  Neil  at  the  time  being  also  military  inspector 
of  horses  for  the  quartermaster.  He  bought  horses  as 
cavalry  horses  for  24Z.  or  less,  and  passed  them  himself  as 


156 


NOKTU  AMERICA. 


artillery  horses  for  SOL  In  other  cases  the  military  iu- 
spectors  were  paid  by  the  sellers  to  pass  horses.  All  this 
was  done  under  Quartermaster  M'Instry,  who  would  him- 
self deal  with  none  but  such  as  Neil.  In  one  instance,  one 
EUiard  got  a  contract  from  M'Instry,  the  profit  of  which 
was  8000/.  But  there  was  a  man  named  Brady.  Now 
Brady  was  a  friend  of  M'Instry,  who,  scenting  the  carrion 
afar  off,  had  come  from  Detroit,  in  Michigan,  to  St.  Louis. 
M'Instry  himself  had  also  come  from  Detroit.  In  this  case 
Elliard  was  simply  directed  by  M'Instry  to  share  his  prof- 
its with  Brady,  and  consequently  paid  to  Brady  4000/., 
although  Brady  gave  to  the  business  neither  capital  nor 
labor.  He  simply  took  the  4000/.  as  the  quartermaster's 
friend.  This  Elliard,  it  seems,  also  gave  a  carriage  and 
horses  to  Mrs.  Fremont.  Indeed,  Elliard  seems  to  have 
been  a  civil  and  generous  fellow.  Then  there  is  a  man 
named  Thompson,  whose  case  is  very  amusing.  Of  him 
the  committee  thus  speaks:  "It  must  be  said  that  Thomp- 
son was  not  forgetful  of  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  for, 
after  he  got  through  with  the  contract,  he  presented  the 
son  of  Major  M'Instry  with  a  riding  pony.  That  was  the 
only  mark  of  respect,"  to  use  his  own  words,  "that  he 
showed  to  the  family  of  Major  M'Instry.'^ 

General  Fremont  himself  desired  that  a  contract  should 
be  made  with  one  Augustus  Sacchi  for  a  thousand  Canadian 
horses.  It  turned  out  that  Sacchi  was  "nobody:  a  man  of 
straw  living  in  a  garret  in  New  York,  wiiom  nobody  knew, 
a  man  who  was  brought  out  there" — to  St.  Louis — "as  a 
good  person  through  whom  to  work."  "It  will  hardly  be 
believed,"  says  the  report,  "that  the  name  of  this  same 
man  Sacchi  appears  in  the  newspapers  as  being  on  the 
staff  of  General  Fremont,  at  Springfield,  with  the  rank  of 
captain." 

I  do  not  know  that  any  good  would  result  from  my  pur- 
suing further  the  details  of  this  wonderful  report.  The 
remaining  portion  of  it  refers  solely  to  the  command  held 
by  General  Fremont  in  Missouri,  and  adds  proof  upon 
proof  of  the  gross  robberies  inflicted  upon  the  government 
of  the  States  by  the  very  persons  set  in  high  authority  to 
protect  the  government.  We  learn  how  all  utensils  for  the 
camp,  kettles,  blankets,  shoes,  mess  pans,  etc.,  were  supplied 
by  one  firm,  without  a  contract,  at  an  enormous  price,  and 
of  a  quality  so  bad  as  to  be  almost  useless,  because  the 


THE  FREMONT  CONTRACTS. 


15t 


quartermaster  was  under  obligations  to  the  partners.  We 
learn  that  one  partner  in  that  firm  gave  40^.  toward  a  serv- 
ice of  plate  for  the  quartermaster,  and  60/.  toward  a  car- 
riage for  Mrs.  Fremont.  We  learn  how  futile  were  the 
efforts  of  any  honest  tradesman  to  supply  good  shoes  to 
soldiers  who  were  shoeless,  and  the  history  of  one  special 
pair  of  shoes  which  was  thrust  under  the  nose  of  the  quar- 
termaster is  very  amusing.  We  learn  that  a  certain  pay- 
master properly  refused  to  settle  an  account  for  maiters 
with  which  he  had  no  concern,  and  that  General  Fremont 
at  once  sent  down  soldiers  to  arrest  him  unless  he  made  the 
illegal  payment.  In  October  1000/.  was  expended  in  ice, 
all  which  ice  was  wasted.  Regiments  were  sent  hither  and 
thither  with  no  military  purpose,  merely  because  certain 
officers,  calling  themselves  generals,  desired  to  make  up 
brigades  for  themselves.  Indeed,  every  description  of 
fraud  was  perpetrated,  and  this  was  done  not  through  the 
negligence  of  those  in  high  command,  but  by  their  con- 
nivance and  often  with  their  express  authority. 

It  will  be  said  that  the  conduct  of  General  Fremont  dur- 
ing the  days  of  his  command  in  Missouri  is  not  a  matter 
of  much  moment  to  us  in  England ;  that  it  has  been  prop- 
erly handled  by  the  committee  of  Representatives  ap- 
pointed by  the  American  Congress  to  inquire  into  the 
matter ;  and  that  after  the  publication  of  such  a  report  by 
them,  it  is  ungenerous  in  a  writer  from  another  nation  to 
speak  upon  the  subject.  This  would  be  so  if  the  inquiries 
made  by  that  committee  and  their  report  had  resulted  in 
any  general  condemnation  of  the  men  whose  misdeeds  and 
peculations  have  been  exposed.  This,  however,  is  by  no 
means  the  case.  Those  who  were  heretofore  opposed  to 
General  Fremont  on  political  principles  are  opposed  to 
him  still;  but  those  who  heretofore  supported  him  are 
ready  to  support  him  again.  He  has  not  been  placed  be- 
yond the  pale  of  public  favor  by  the  record  which  has  been 
made  of  his  public  misdeeds.  He  is  decried  by  the  Demo- 
crats because  he  is  a  Republican,  and  by  the  anti-abolition- 
ists because  he  is  an  Abolitionist;  but  he  is  not  decried 
because  he  has  shown  himself  to  be  dishonest  in  the  serv- 
ice of  his  government.  He  was  dismissed  from  his  com- 
mand in  the  West,  but  men  on  his  side  of  the  question 
declare  that  he  was  so  dismissed  because  his  political  oppo- 
nents had  prevailed.  Now,  at  the  moment  that  I  am  writ- 
VOL.  II. — 14 


158 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing  this,  men  are  saying  that  the  President  must  give  him 
another  command.  He  is  still  a  major-general  in  the  army 
of  the  States,  and  is  as  probable  a  candidate  as  any  other 
that  I  could  name  for  the  next  Presidency.* 

The  same  argument  must  be  used  with  reference  to  the 
other  gentlemen  named.  Mr.  Welles  is  still  a  cabinet  min- 
ister and  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  It  has  been  found  im- 
possible to  keep  Mr.  Cameron  in  the  cabinet,  but  he  was 
named  as  the  minister  of  the  States  government  to  Russia, 
after  the  publication  of  the  Van  Wyck  report,  when  the 
result  of  his  old  political  friendship  with  Mr.  Alexander 
Cummings  was  well  known  to  the  President  who  appointed 
him  and  to  the  Senate  who  sanctioned  his  appointment. 
The  individual  corruption  of  any  one  man — of  any  ten  men 
■ — is  not  much.  It  should  not  be  insisted  on  loudly  by  any 
foreigner  in  making  up  a  balance-sheet  of  the  virtues  and 
vices  of  the  good  and  bad  qualities  of  any  nation.  But 
the  light  in  which  such  corruption  is  viewed  by  the  people 
whom  it  most  nearly  concerns  is  very  much.  I  am  far  from 
saying  that  democracy  has  failed  in  America.  Democracy 
there  has  done  great  things  for  a  numerous  people,  and  will 
yet,  as  I  think,  be  successful.  But  that  doctrine  as  to  the 
necessity  of  smartness  must  be  eschewed  before  a  verdict 
in  favor  of  American  democracy  can  be  pronounced.  "  It 
behoves  a  man  to  be  smart,  sir."  In  those  words  are  con- 
tained the  curse  under  which  the  States  government  has 
been  suffering  for  the  last  thirty  years.  Let  us  hope  that 
the  people  will  find  a  mode  of  ridding  themselves  of  that 
curse.    I,  for  one,  believe  that  they  will  do  so. 


*  Since  this  was  ■written,  General  Fremont  has  been  restored  to 
high  military  command,  and  now  holds  rank  and  equal  authority 
with  McClellan  and  Halleck.  In  fact,  the  charges  made  against  him 
by  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  have  not  been 
allowed  to  stand  in  his  way.  He  is  politically  popular  with  a  large 
section  of  the  nation,  and  therefore  it  has  been  thought  well  to  pro- 
mote him  to  high  place.  "Whether  he  be  fit  for  such  place  either  as 
regards  capability  or  integrity,  seems  to  be  considered  of  no  moment. 


BACK  TO  BOSTON. 


159 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BACK  TO  BOSTON. 

From  Louisville  we  returned  to  Cincinnati,  in  making 
which  journey  we  were  taken  to  a  place  called  Seymour,  in 
Indiana,  at  which  spot  we  were  to  "make  connection"  with 
the  train  running  on  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  line  from  St. 
Louis  to  Cincinnati.  We  did  make  the  connection,  but  were 
called  upon  to  remain  four  hours  at  Seymour  in  consequence 
of  some  accident  on  the  line.  In  the  same  way,  when  going 
eastward  from  Cincinnati  to  Baltimore  a  few  days  later,  I 
was  detained  another  four  hours  at  a  place  called  Crestline, 
in  Ohio.  On  both  occasions  I  spent  my  time  in  realizing, 
as  far  as  that  might  be  possible,  the  sort  of  life  which  men 
lead  who  settle  themselves  at  such  localities.  Both  these 
towns — for  they  call  themselves  towns — had  been  created  by 
the  railways.  Indeed  this  has  been  the  case  with  almost 
every  place  at  which  a  few  hundred  inhabitants  have  been 
drawn  together  in  the  Western  States.  With  the  exception 
of  such  cities  as  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and  Cincinnati,  settlers 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  chosen  their  own  localities. 
These  have  been  chosen  for  them  by  the  originators  of  the 
different  lines  of  railway.  And  there  is  nothing  in  Europe 
in  any  way  like  to  these  Western  railway  settlements.  In 
the  first  place,  the  line  of  the  rails  runs  through  the  main 
street  of  the  town,  and  forms  not  unfrequently  the  only  road. 
At  Seymour  I  could  find  no  way  of  getting  away  from  the 
rails  unless  I  went  into  the  fields.  At  Crestline,  which  is  a 
larger  place,  I  did  find  a  street  in  which  there  was  no  rail- 
road, but  it  was  deserted,  and  manifestly  out  of  favor  with 
the  inhabitants.  As  there  were  railway  junctions  at  both 
these  posts,  there  were,  of  course,  cross-streets,  and  the 
houses  extended  themselves  from  the  center  thus  made  along 
the  lines,  houses  being  added  to  houses  at  short  intervals  as 
new-comers  settled  themselves  down.  The  panting,  and 
groaning,  and  whistling  of  engines  is  continual ;  for  at  such 
places  freight  trains  are  always  kept  waiting  for  passenger 


160 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


trains,  and  the  slower  freight  trains  for  those  which  are 
called  fast.  This  is  the  life  of  the  town  ;  and  indeed  as  the 
whole  place  is  dependent  on  the  railway,  so  is  the  railway 
held  in  favor  and  beloved.  The  noise  of  the  engines  is  not 
disliked,  nor  are  its  puffings  and  groanings  held  to  be  un- 
musical. With  us  a  locomotive  steam-engine  is  still,  as  it 
were,  a  beast  of  prey,  against  which  one  has  to  be  on  one's 
guard — in  respect  to  which  one  specially  warns  the  children. 
But  there,  in  the  Western  States,  it  has  been  taken  to  the 
bosoms  of  them  all  as  a  domestic  animal ;  no  one  fears  it, 
and  the  little  children  run  about  almost  among  its  wheels. 
It  is  petted  and  made  much  of  on  all  sides — and,  as  far  as  I 
know,  it  seldom  bites  or  tears.  I  have  not  heard  of  children 
being  destroyed  wholesale  in  the  streets,  or  of  drunken  men 
becoming  frequent  sacrifices.  But  had  I  been  consulted 
beforehand  as  to  the  natural  effects  of  such  an  arrangement, 
I  should  have  said  that  no  child  could  have  been  reared  in 
such  a  town,  and  that  any  continuance  of  population  under 
such  circumstances  must  have  been  impracticable. 

Such  places,  however,  do  thrive  and  prosper  with  a  pros- 
perity especially  their  own,  and  the  boys  and  girls  increase 
and  multiply  in  spite  of  all  dangers.  With  us  in  England 
it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  importance  which  is  attached  to 
a  railway  in  the  States,  and  the  results  which  a  railway 
creates.  We  have  roads  everywhere,  and  our  country  had 
been  cultivated  throughout  with  more  or  less  care  before  our 
system  of  railways  had  been  commenced ;  but  in  America, 
especially  in  the  North,  the  railways  have  been  the  precur- 
sors of  cultivation.  They  have  been  carried  hither  and 
thither,  through  primeval  forests  and  over  prairies,  with 
small  hope  of  other  traffic  than  that  which  they  themselves 
would  make  by  their  own  influences.  The  people  settling 
on  their  edges  have  had  the  very  best  of  all  roads  at  their 
service  ;  but  they  have  had  no  other  roads.  The  face  of  the 
country  between  one  settlement  and  another  is  still  in  many 
cases  utterly  unknown ;  but  there  is  the  connecting  road 
by  which  produce  is  carried  away,  and  new-comers  are 
brought  in.  The  town  that  is  distant  a  hundred  miles  by 
the  rail  is  so  near  that  its  inhabitants  are  neighbors ;  but  a 
settlement  twenty  miles  distant  across  the  uncleared  country 
is  unknown,  unvisited,  and  probably  unheard  of  by  the 
women  and  children.  Under  such  circumstances  the  railway 
is  everything.    It  is  the  first  necessity  of  life,  and  gives  the 


PHASES  OF  WESTERN  CnARACTER.  IGl 

only  hope  of  wealth.  It  is  the  backbone  of  existence  from 
whence  spring,  and  by  which  are  protected,  all  the  vital  or- 
gans and  functions  of  the  community.  It  is  the  right  arm 
of  civilization  for  the  people,  and  the  discoverer  of  the  fer- 
tility of  the  land.  It  is  all  in  all  to  those  people,  and  to 
those  regions.  It  has  supplied  the  wants  of  frontier  life 
with  all  the  substantial  comfort  of  the  cities,  and  carried 
education,  progress,  and  social  habits  into  the  wilderness. 
To  the  eye  of  the  stranger  such  places  as  Seymour  and 
Crestline  are  desolate  and  dreary.  There  is  nothing  of 
beauty  in  them — given  either  by  nature  or  by  art.  The 
railway  itself  is  ugly,  and  its  numerous  sidings  and  branches 
form  a  mass  of  iron  road  which  is  bewildering,  and,  accord- 
ing to  my  ideas,  in  itself  disagreeable.  The  wooden  houses 
open  down  upon  the  line,  and  have  no  gardens  to  relieve 
them.  A  foreigner,  when  first  surveying  such  a  spot,  will 
certainly  record  within  himself  a  verdict  against  it ;  but  in 
doing  so  he  probably  commits  the  error  of  judging  it  by  a 
wrong  standard.  He  should  compare  it  with  the  new  settle- 
ments which  men  have  opened  up  in  spots  where  no  railway 
has  assisted  them,  and  not  with  old  towns  in  which  wealth 
has  long  been  congregated.  The  traveler  may  see  what  is 
the  place  with  the  railway ;  then  let  him  consider  how  it 
might  have  thriven  without  the  railway. 

I  confess  that  I  became  tired  of  my  sojourn  at  both  the 
places  I  have  named.  At  each  I  think  that  I  saw  every 
house  in  the  place,  although  my  visit  to  Seymour  was  made 
in  the  night ;  and  at  both  I  was  lamentably  at  a  loss  for 
something  to  do.  At  Crestline  I  was  all  alone,  and  began 
to  feel  that  the  hours  which  I  knew  must  pass  before  the 
missing  train  could  come  would  never  make  away  with  them- 
selves. There  were  many  others  stationed  there  as  I  was, 
but  to  them  had  been  given  a  capability  for  loafiiig  which 
niggardly  Nature  has  denied  to  me.  An  American  has  the 
power  of  seating  himself  in  the  close  vicinity  of  a  hot  stove 
and  feeding  in  silence  on  his  own  thoughts  by  the  hour 
together.  It  may  be  that  he  will  smoke  ;  but  after  awhile 
his  cigar  will  come  to  an  end.  He  sits  on,  however,  certainly 
patient,  and  apparently  contented.  It  may  be  that  he  chews, 
but  if  so,  he  does  it  with  motionless  jaws,  and  so  slow  a 
mastication  of  the  pabulum  upon  which  he  feeds,  that  his 
employment  in  this  respect  only  disturbs  the  absolute  quiet 
of  the  circle  when,  at  certain  long,  distant  intervals,  he  de- 
VOL.  n. — 14* 


1G2 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


posits  the  secretion  of  his  tobacco  in  au  ornamental  utensil 
which  maj  probably  be  placed  in  the  farthest  corner  of  the 
hall.  But  during  all  this  time  he  is  happy.  It  does  not  fret 
him  to  sit  there  and  think  and  do  nothing,  lie  is  by  no 
means  an  idle  man — probably  one  much  given  to  commercial 
enterprise.  Idle  men  out  there  in  the  West  we  may  say 
there  are  none.  How  should  any  idle  man  live  in  such  a 
country  ?  All  who  were  sitting  hour  after  hour  in  that 
circle  round  the  stove  of  the  Crestline  Hotel  hall — sitting 
there  hour  after  hour  in  silence,  as  I  could  not  sit — were 
men  who  earned  their  bread  by  labor.  They  were  farmers, 
mechanics,  storekeepers ;  there  was  a  lawyer  or  two,  and 
one  clergyman.  Sufficient  conversation  took  place  at  first 
to  indicate  the  professions  of  many  of  them.  One  may  con- 
clude that  there  could  not  be  place  there  for  an  idle  man. 
But  they  all  of  them  had  a  capacity  for  a  prolonged  state 
of  doing  nothing  which  is  to  me  unintelligible,  and  which  is 
by  me  very  much  to  be  envied.  They  are  patient  as  cows 
which  from  hour  to  hour  lie  on  the  grass  chewing  their  cud. 
An  Englishman,  if  he  be  kept  waiting  by  a  train  in  some 
forlorn  station  in  which  he  can  find  no  employment,  curses 
Lis  fate  and  all  that  has  led  to  his  present  misfortune  with 
an  energy  which  tells  the  story  of  his  deep  and  thorough 
misery.  Such,  I  confess,  is  my  state  of  existence  under 
such  circumstances.  But  a  Western  American  gives  him- 
self up  to  "loafing,"  and  is  quite  happy.  He  balances 
himself  on  the  back  legs  of  an  arm-chair,  and  remains  so,  with- 
out speaking,  drinking  or  smoking  for  an  hour  at  a  stretch ; 
and  while  he  is  doing  so  he  looks  as  though  he  had  all  that 
he  desired.  I  believe  that  he  is  happy,  and  that  he  has  all 
that  he  wants  for  such  an  occasion — an  arm-chair  in  which 
to  sit,  and  a  stove  on  which  he  can  put  his  feet  and  by  which 
he  can  make  himself  warm. 

Such  was  not  the  phase  of  character  which  I  had  expected 
to  find  among  the  people  of  the  West.  Of  all  virtues  pa- 
tience would  have  been  the  last  which  I  should  have  thought 
of  attributing  to  them.  I  should  have  expected  to  see  them 
angry  when  robbed  of  their  time,  and  irritable  under  the 
stress  of  such  grievances  as  railway  delays ;  but  they  are 
never  irritable  under  such  circumstances  as  I  have  attempted 
to  describe,  nor,  indeed,  are  they  a  people  prone  to  irrita- 
tion under  any  grievances.  Even  in  political  matters  they 
are  long-enduring,  and  do  not  form  themselves  into  mobs 


CINCINNATI. 


1G3 


for  the  expression  of  hot  opinion.  We  in  England  thought 
that  masses  of  the  people  would  rise  in  anger  if  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's government  should  consent  to  give  up  Slidell  and 
Mason ;  but  the  people  bore  it  without  any  rising.  The 
habeas  corpus  has  been  suspended,  the  liberty  of  the  press 
lias  been  destroyed  for  a  time,  the  telegraph  wires  have 
been  taken  up  by  the  government  into  their  own  hands,  but 
nevertheless  the  people  have  said  nothing.  There  has  been 
no  rising  of  a  mob,  and  not  even  an  expression  of  an  ad- 
verse opinion.  The  people  require  to  be  allowed  to  vote 
periodically,  and,  having  acquired  that  privilege,  permit 
other  matters  to  go  by  the  board.  In  this  respect  we  have, 
I  think,  in  some  degree  misunderstood  their  character. 
They  have  all  been  taught  to  reverence  the  nature  of  that 
form  of  government  under  which  they  live,  but  they  are  not 
specially  addicted  to  hot  political  fermentation.  They  have 
learned  to  understand  that  democratic  institutions  have  given 
them  liberty,  and  on  that  subject  they  entertain  a;  strong 
conviction  which  is  universal.  13ut  they  have  not  habitually 
interested  themselves  deeply  in  the  doings  of  their  legisla- 
tors or  of  their  government.  On  the  subject  of  slavery 
there  have  been  and  are  diiferent  opinions,  held  with  great 
tenacity  and  maintained  occasionally  with  violence  ;  but  on 
other  subjects  of  daily  policy  the  American  people  have  not, 
I  think,  been  eager  politicians.  Leading  men  in  pul)lic  life 
have  been  much  less  trammeled  by  popular  will  than  among 
us.  Indeed  with  us  the  most  conspicuous  of  our  statesmen 
and  legislators  do  not  lead,  but  are  led.  In  the  States  the 
noted  politicians  of  the  day  have  been  the  leaders,  and  not 
unfrequently  the  coercers  of  opinion.  Seeing  this,  I  claim 
for  England  a  broader  freedom  in  political  matters  than  the 
States  have  as  yet  achieved.  In  speaking  of  the  American 
form  of  government,  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  more  clearly 
the  ideas  which  I  have  come  to  hold  on  this  matter. 

I  survived  my  delay  at  Seymour,  after  which  I  passed 
again  through  Cincinnati,  and  then  survived  my  subsequent 
delay  at  Crestline.  As  to  Cincinnati,  I  must  put  on  record 
the  result  of  a  country  walk  which  I  took  there,  or  rather 
on  which  I  was  taken  by  my  friend.  He  professed  to  know 
the  beauties  of  the  neighborhood,  and  to  ])e  well  acquainted 
with  all  that  was  attractive  in  its  vicinity.  Cincinnati  is 
built  on  the  Ohio,  and  is  closely  surrounded  by  picturesque 
bills  which  overhang  the  suburbs  of  the  city.    Over  these 


1C4 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


I  was  taken,  plowing  my  way  through  a  depth  of  mud  which 
cannot  be  understood  by  any  ordinary  Englishman.  But 
the  depth  of  mud  was  not  the  only  impediment  nor  the  worst 
which  we  encountered.  As  we  began  to  ascend  from  the 
level  of  the  outskirts  of  the  town  we  were  greeted  by  a 
rising  flavor  in  the  air,  which  soon  grew  into  a  strong  odor, 
and  at  last  developed  itself  into  a  stench  that  surpassed  in 
offensiveness  anything  that  my  nose  had  ever  hitherto  suf- 
fered. Wlien  we  were  at  the  worst  we  hardly  knew  whether 
to  descend  or  to  proceed.  It  had  so  increased  in  virulence 
that  at  one  time  I  felt  sure  that  it  arose  from  some  matter 
buried  in  the  ground  beneath  my  feet.  But  my  friend,  who 
declared  himself  to  be  quite  at  home  in  Cincinnati  matters, 
and  to  understand  the  details  of  the  great  Cincinnati  trade, 
declared  against  this  opinion  of  mine.  Hogs,  he  said,  were 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  It  was  the  odor  of  hogs  going  up  to 
the  Ohio  heavens — of  hogs  in  a  state  of  transit  from  hog- 
gish nature  to  clothes-brushes,  saddles,  sausages,  and  lard. 
He  spoke  with  an  authority  that  constrained  belief ;  but  I 
can  never  forgive  him  in  that  he  took  me  over  those  hills, 
knowing  all  that  he  professed  to  know.  Let  the  visitors  to 
Cincinnati  keep  themselves  within  the  city,  and  not  wander 
forth  among  the  mountains.  It  is  well  that  the  odor  of 
hogs  should  ascend  to  heaven  and  not  hang  heavy  over  the 
streets  ;  but  it  is  not  well  to  intercept  that  odor  in  its  as- 
cent. My  friend  became  ill  with  fever,  and  had  to  betake 
himself  to  the  care  of  nursing  friends  ;  so  that  I  parted 
company  with  him  at  Cincinnati.  I  did  not  tell  him  that 
his  illness  was  deserved  as  well  as  natural,  but  such  was  my 
feeling  on  the  matter.  I  myself  happily  escaped  the  evil 
consequences  which  his  imprudence  might  have  entailed 
on  me. 

I  again  passed  through  Pittsburg,  and  over  the  Alleghany 
Mountains  by  Altoona,  and  down  to  Baltimore — back  into 
civilization,  secession,  conversation,  and  gastronomy.  I 
never  had  secessionist  sympathies  and  never  expressed  them. 
I  always  believed  in  the  North  as  a  people — discrediting, 
however,  to  the  utmost  the  existing  Northern  government, 
or,  as  I  should  more  properly  say,  the  existing  Northern 
cabinet ;  but,  nevertheless,  with  such  feelings  and  such  be- 
lief I  found  myself  very  happy  at  Baltimore.  Putting  aside 
Boston  —  which  must,  I  think,  be  generally  preferred  by 
Englishmen  to  any  other  city  in  the  States — I  should  choose 


BALTIMORE. 


1C5 


Baltimore  as  my  residence  if  I  were  called  upon  to  live  in 
America.  I  am  not  led  to  this,  if  I  know  myself,  solely  by 
the  canvas-back  ducks ;  and  as  to  tlie  terrapins,  I  throw 
them  to  the  winds.  The  madeira,  wliich  is  still  kept  there 
with  a  reverence  which  I  should  call  superstitious  were  it 
not  that  its  free  circulation  among  outside  worshipers  pro- 
hibits the  just  use  of  such  a  word,  may  have  something  to 
do  with  it,  as  may  also  the  beauty  of  the  women — to  some 
small  extent.  Trifles  do  bear  upon  our  happiness  in  a 
manner  that  we  do  not  ourselves  understand  and  of  which 
we  are  unconscious.  But  there  was  an  English  look  about 
the  streets  and  houses  which  I  think  had  as  much  to  do  with 
it  as  either  the  wine,  the  women,  or  the  ducks,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  as  though  the  manners  of  the  people  of  Maryland 
were  more  English  than  those  of  other  Americans.  I  do 
not  say  that  they  were  on  this  account  better.  My  English 
hat  is,  I  am  well  aware,  less  graceful,  and  I  believe  less 
comfortable,  than  a  Turkish  fez  and  turban  ;  nevertheless  I 
prefer  my  English  hat.  New  York  I  regard  as  the  most 
thoroughly  American  of  all  American  cities.  It  is  by  no 
means  the  one  in  which  I  should  find  myself  the  happiest ; 
but  I  do  not  on  that  account  condemn  it. 

I  have  said  that  in  returning  to  Baltimore  I  found  myself 
among  secessionists.  In  so  saying  I  intend  to  speak  of  a 
certain  set  whose  influence  depends  perhaps  more  on  their 
wealth,  position,  and  education  than  on  their  numbers.  I 
do  not  think  that  the  population  of  the  city  was  then  in 
favor  of  secession,  even  if  it  had  ever  been  so.  I  believe 
that  the  mob  of  Baltimore  is  probably  the  roughest  mob  in 
the  States — is  more  akin  to  a  Paris  mob,  and  I  may  perhaps 
also  say  to  a  Manchester  mob,  than  that  of  any  other  Amer- 
ican city.  There  are  more  roughs  in  Baltimore  than  else- 
where, and  the  roughs  there  are  rougher.  In  those  early 
days  of  secession,  when  the  troops  were  being  first  hurried 
down  from  New  England  for  the  protection  of  Washington, 
this  mob  was  vehemently  opposed  to  its  progress.  Men  had 
been  taught  to  think  that  the  rights  of  the  State  of  Mary- 
land were  being  invaded  by  the  passage  of  the  soldiers,  and 
they  also  were  undoubtedly  imbued  with  a  strong  prepos- 
session for  the  Southern  cause.  The  two  ideas  had  then 
gone  together.  But  the  mob  of  Baltimore  had  ceased  to 
be  secessionists  within  twelve  months  of  their  first  exploit.- 
In  April,  1861,  they  had  refused  to  allow  Massachusetts 


166 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


soldiers  to  pass  through  the  town  on  their  way  to  Wash- 
ington ;  and  in  February,  1862,  they  were  nailing  Union 
flags  on  the  door-posts  of  those  who  refused  to  display 
such  banners  as  signs  of  triumph  at  the  Northern  victories  1 

That  Maryland  can  ever  go  with  the  South,  even  in  the 
event  of  the  South  succeeding  in  secession,  no  Marylander 
can  believe.  It  is  not  pretended  that  there  is  any  struggle 
now  going  on  with  such  an  object.  No  such  result  has 
been  expected,  certainly  since  the  possession  of  Washington 
was  secured  to  the  North  by  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  By 
few,  I  believe,  was  such  a  result  expected  even  when  Wash- 
ington was  insecure.  And  yet  the  feeling  for  secession 
among  a  certain  class  in  Baltimore  is  as  strong  now  as  ever 
it  was.  And  it  is  equally  strong  in  certain  districts  of  the 
State  —  in  those  districts  which  are  most  akin  to  Virginia 
in  their  habits,  modes  of  thought,  and  ties  of  friendship. 
These  men,  and  these  women  also,  pray  for  the  South  if  they 
be  pious,  give  their  money  to  the  South  if  they  be  generous, 
work  for  the  South  if  they  be  industrious,  fight  for  the 
South  if  they  be  young,  and  talk  for  the  South  morning, 
noon,  and  night,  in  spite  of  General  Dix  and  his  colum- 
biads  on  Federal  Hill.  It  is  in  vain  to  say  that  such  men 
and  women  have  no  strong  feeling  on  the  matter,  and  that 
they  are  praying,  working,  fighting,  and  talking  under  dicta- 
tion. Their  hearts  are  in  it.  And  judging  from  them, 
even  though  there  were  no  other  evidence  from  which  to 
judge,  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  similar  feeling  is  strong 
through  all  the  seceding  States.  On  this  subject  the  North, 
I  think,  deceives  itself  in  supposing  that  the  Southern  re- 
bellion has  been  carried  on  without  any  strong  feeling  on 
the  part  of  the  Southern  people.  Whether  the  mob  of 
Charleston  be  like  the  mob  of  Baltimore  I  cannot  tell ;  but 
I  have  no  doubt  as  to  the  gentry  of  Charleston  and  the 
gentry  of  Baltimore  being  in  accord  on  the  subject. 

In  what  way,  then,  when  the  question  has  been  settled  by 
the  force  of  arms,  will  these  classes  find  themselves  obliged 
to  act?  In  Virginia  and  Maryland  they  comprise,  as  a 
rule,  the  highest  and  best  educated  of  the  people.  As 
to  parts  of  Kentucky  the  same  thing  may  be  said,  and 
probably  as  to  the  whole  of  Tennessee.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  this  is  not  as  though  certain  aristocratic  families 
in  a  few  English  counties  should  find  themselves  divided  off 
from  the  politics  and  national  aspirations  of  their  country- 


WASHINGTON  AND  MUD. 


167 


men,  as  was  the  case  long  since  with  reference  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  adherents  of  the  Stuarts,  and  as  has  been 
the  case  since  then  in  a  lesser  degree  with  the  firmest  of  the 
old  Tories  who  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  deceived  by 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  In  each  of  these  cases  the  minority  of 
dissentients  was  so  small  that  the  nation  suffered  nothing, 
though  individuals  were  all  but  robbed  of  their  nationality. 
But  as  regards  America  it  must  be  remembered  that  each 
State  has  in  itself  a  governing  power,  and  is  in  fact  a  sepa- 
rate people.  Each  has  its  own  legislature,  and  must  have 
its  own  line  of  politics. 

The  secessionists  of  Maryland  and  of  Yirginia  may  con- 
sent to  live  in  obscurity;  but  if  this  be  so,  who  is  to  rule 
in  those  States  ?  From  whence  are  to  come  the  senators 
and  the  members  of  Congress;  the  governors  and  at- 
torney-generals? From  whence  is  to  come  the  national 
spirit  of  the  two  States,  and  the  salt  that  shall  preserve 
their  political  life  ?  I  have  never  believed  that  these  States 
would  succeed  in  secession.  I  have  always  felt  that  they 
would  be  held  within  the  Union,  whatever  might  be  their 
own  wishes.  But  I  think  that  they  will  be  so  held  in  a 
manner  and  after  a  fashion  that  will  render  any  political 
vitality  almost  impossible  till  a  new  generation  shall  have 
sprung  up.  In  the  mean  time  life  goes  on  pleasantly 
enough  in  Baltimore,  and  ladies  meet  together,  knitting 
stockings  and  sewing  shirts  for  the  Southern  soldiers,  while 
the  gentlemen  talk  Southern  politics  and  drink  the  health 
of  the  (Southern)  president  in  ambiguous  terms,  as  our 
Cavaliers  used  to  drink  the  health  of  the  king. 

During  my  second  visit  to  Baltimore  I  went  over  to 
Washington  for  a  day  or  two,  and  found  the  capital  still 
under  the  empire  of  King  Mud.  How  the  elite  of  a 
nation — for  the  inhabitants  of  Washington  consider  them- 
selves to  be  the  elite — can  consent  to  live  in  such  a  state 
of  thraldom,  a  foreigner  cannot  understand.  Were  I  to 
say  that  it  was  intended  to  be  typical  of  the  condition  of 
the  government,  I  might  be  considered  cynical ;  but  un- 
doubtedly the  sloughs  of  despond  which  were  deepest  in 
their  despondency  were  to  be  found  in  localities  which  gave 
an  appearance  of  truth  to  such  a  surmise.  The  Secretary 
of  State's  office,  in  which  Mr  Seward  was  still  reigning, 
though  with  diminished  glory,  was  divided  from  the  head- 
quarters of  the  commander-in-chief,  which  are  immediately 


168 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


opposite  to  it,  by  an  opaque  river  which  admitted  of  no 
transit.  These  buildings  stand  at  the  corner  of  President 
Square,  and  it  had  been  long  understood  that  any  close  in- 
tercourse between  them  had  not  been  considered  desirable 
by  the  occupants  of  the  military  side  of  the  causeway.  But 
the  Secretary  of  State's  office  was  altogether  unapproach- 
able without  a  long  circuit  and  begrimed  legs.  The  Secre- 
tary of  War's  department  was,  if  possible,  in  a  worse  con- 
dition. This  is  situated  on  the  other  side  of  the  President's 
house,  and  the  mud  lay,  if  possible,  thicker  in  this  quarter 
than  it  did  round  Mr.  Seward's  chambers.  The  passage 
over  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  immediately  in  front  of  the  War 
Office,  was  a  thing  not  to  be  attempted  in  those  days.  Mr. 
Cameron,  it  is  true,  had  gone,  and  Mr.  Stanton  was  in- 
stalled; but  the  labor  of  cleansing  the  interior  of  that 
establishment  had  hitherto  allowed  no  time  for  a  glance  at 
the  exterior  dirt,  and  Mr.  Stanton  should,  perhaps,  be  held 
as  excused.  That  the  Navy  Office  should  be  buried  in  mud, 
and  quite  debarred  from  approach,  was  to  be  expected. 
The  space  immediately  in  front  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  resi- 
dence was  still  kept  fairly  clean,  and  I  am  happy  to  be  able 
to  give  testimony  to  this  effect.  Long  may  it  remain  so, 
I  could  not,  however,  but  think  that  an  energetic  and  care- 
ful President  would  have  seen  to  the  removal  of  the  dirt 
from  his  own  immediate  neighborhood.  It  was  something 
that  his  own  shoes  should  remain  unpolluted ;  but  the  foul 
mud  always  clinging  to  the  boots  and  leggings  of  those  by 
whom  he  was  daily  surrounded  must,  I  should  think,  have 
been  offensive  to  him.  The  entrance  to  the  Treasury  was^ 
difficult  to  achieve  by  those  who  had  not  learned  by  prac- 
tice the  ways  of  the  place ;  but  I  must  confess  that  a 
tolerably  clear  passage  was  maintained  on  that  side  which 
led  immediately  down  to  the  halls  of  Congress.  Up  at  the 
Capitol  the  mud  was  again  triumphant  in  the  front  of  the 
building;  this  however  was  not  of  great  importance,  as  the 
legislative  chambers  of  the  States  are  always  reached  by 
the  back  doors.  I,  on  this  occasion,  attempted  to  leave  the 
building  by  the  grand  entrance,  but  I  soon  became  entangled 
among  rivers  of  mud  and  mazes  of  shifting  sand.  With 
difficulty  I  recovered  my  steps,  and  finding  my  way  back  to 
the  building  was  forced  to  content  myself  by  an  exit  among 
the  crowd  of  Senators  and  Representatives  who  were  throng- 
ing down  the  back  stairs. 


MR.  SEWARD. 


169 


Of  dirt  of  all  kinds  it  behoves  Washington  and  those 
concerned  in  Washington  to  make  themselves  free.  It  is 
the  Augean  stables  tlirough  which  some  American  Hercules 
must  turn  a  purifying  river  before  the  American  people  can 
justly  boast  either  of  their  capital  or  of  their  government. 
As  to  the  material  mud,  enough  has  been  said.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  army  perhaps  caused  it,  and  the  excessive  quan- 
tity of  rain  which  had  fallen  may  also  be  taken  as  a  fair 
plea.  But  what  excuse  shall  we  find  for  that  other  dirt  ? 
It  also  had  been  caused  by  the  presence  of  the  army,  and 
by  that  long-continued  down-pouring  of  contracts  which 
had  fallen  like  Danse's  golden  sliower  into  the  laps  of  those 
who  understood  how  to  avail  themselves  of  such  heavenly 
waters.  The  leaders  of  the  rebellion  are  hated  in  the 
North.  Tlie  names  of  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Cobb,  Toombs, 
and  Floyd  are  mentioned  with  execration  by  the  very  chil- 
dren. This  has  sprung  from  a  true  and  noble  feeling ;  from 
a  patriotic  love  of  national  greatness  and  a  hatred  of  those 
who,  for  small  party  purposes,  have  been  willing  to  lessen 
the  name  of  the  United  States.  I  have  reverenced  the 
feeling  even  when  I  have  not  shared  it.  But,  in  addition  to 
this,  the  names  of  those  also  should  be  execrated  who  have 
robbed  their  country  when  pretending  to  serve  it;  who  have 
taken  its  wages  in  the  days  of  its  great  struggle,  and  at  the 
same  time  have  filched  from  its  coffers ;  who  have  under- 
taken the  task  of  steering  the  ship  through  the  storm  in 
order  that  their  hands  might  be  deep  in  the  meal-tub  and 
the  bread-basket,  and  that  they  might  stuff"  their  own  sacks 
with  the  ship's  provisions.  These  are  the  men  who  must 
be  loathed  by  the  nation — whose  fate  must  be  held  up  as  a 
warning  to  others  before  good  can  come  !  Northern  men 
and  women  talk  of  hanging  Davis  and  his  accomplices.  I 
myself  trust  that  there  will  be  no  hanging  when  the  w^ar  is 
over.  I  believe  there  will  be  none,  for  the  Americans  are 
not  a  blood-thirsty  people.  But  if  punishment  of  any 
kind  be  meted  out,  the  men  of  the  North  should  understand 
that  they  have  worse  offenders  among  them  than  Davis  and 
Floyd. 

At  the  period  of  which  I  am  now  speaking,  there  had 
come  a  change  over  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  cabinet. 
Mr.  Seward  was  still  his  Secretary  of  State,  but  he  was,  as 
far  as  outside  observers  could  judge,  no  longer  his  Prime 
VOL.  II. — 15 


no 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Minister.  lu  the  early  days  of  tlie  war,  and  up  to  the 
departure  of  Mr,  Cameron  from  out  of  the  cabinet,  Mr. 
Seward  had  been  the  Minister  of  the  nation.  In  his  dis- 
patches he  talks  ever  of  We  or  of  I.  In  every  word  of  his 
official  writings,  of  which  a  large  volume  has  been  published, 
he  shows  plainly  that  he  intends  to  be  considered  as  the 
man  of  the  day — as  the  hero  who  is  to  bring  the  States 
through  their  difficulties.  Mr.  Lincoln  may  be  king,  but 
Mr.  Seward  is  mayor  of  the  palace,  and  carries  the  king  in 
his  pocket.  From  the  depth  of  his  own  wisdom  he  under- 
takes to  teach  his  ministers  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  not 
only  their  duties,  but  their  proper  aspiration.  He  is  equally 
kind  to  foreign  statesmen,  and  sends  to  them  messages  as 
though  from  an  altitude  which  no  European  politician  had 
ever  reached.  At  home  he  has  affected  the  Prime  Minister 
in  everything,  dropping  the  We  and  using  the  I  in  a  man- 
ner that  has  hardly  made  up  by  its  audacity  for  its  deficiency 
in  discretion.  It  is  of  course  known  everywhere  that  he 
had  run  Mr.  Lincoln  very  hard  for  the  position  of  Repub- 
lican candidate  for  the  Presidency.  Mr.  Lincoln  beat  him, 
and  Mr.  Seward  is  well  aware  that  in  the  States  a  man  has 
never  a  second  chance  for  the  presidential  chair.  Hence 
has  arisen  his  ambition  to  make  for  himself  a  new  place  in 
the  annals  of  American  politics.  Hitherto  there  has  been 
no  Prime  Minister  known  in  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Seward  has  attempted  a  revolution  in  that 
matter,  and  has  essayed  to  fill  the  situation.  For  awhile  it 
almost  seemed  that  he  was  successful.  He  interfered  with 
the  army,  and  his  interferences  were  endured.  He  took 
upon  himself  the  business  of  the  police,  and  arrested  men 
at  his  own  will  and  pleasure.  The  habeas  corpus  was  in 
his  hand,  and  his  name  was  current  through  the  States  as  a 
covering  authority  for  every  outrage  on  the  old  laws.  Suf- 
ficient craft,  or  perhaps  cleverness,  he  possessed  to  organize 
a  position  which  should  give  him  a  power  greater  than  the 
power  of  the  President;  but  he  had  not  the  genius  which 
would  enable  him  to  hold  it.  He  made  foolish  prophecies 
about  the  war,  and  talked  of  the  triumphs  which  he  would 
win.  He  wrote  state-papers  on  matters  which  he  did  not 
understand,  and  gave  himself  the  airs  of  diplomatic  learning 
while  he  showed  himself  to  be  sadly  ignorant  of  the  very 
rudiments  of  diplomacy.   He  tried  to  joke  as  Lord  Palmer- 


MR.  SEWARD. 


ni 


stou  jokes,  and  nobody  liked  his  joking.  lie  was  greedy 
after  the  little  appanages  of  power,  taking  from  otliers  who 
loved  them  as  well  as  he  did  privileges  with  whicli  he  might 
have  dispensed.  And  then,  lastly,  he  was  successful  in 
nothing.  He  had  given  himself  out  as  the  commander  of 
the  commander-in-chief ;  but  then  under  his  command 
nothing  got  itself  done.  For  a  month  or  two  some  men 
had  really  believed  in  Mr.  Seward.  The  policemen  of  the 
country  had  come  to  have  an  absolute  trust  in  him,  and  the 
underlings  of  the  public  offices  were  beginning  to  think  that 
he  might  be  a  great  man.  But  then,  as  is  ever  the  case  with 
such  men,  there  came  suddenly  a  downfall,  Mr.  Cameron 
went  from  the  cabinet,  and  everybody  knew  that  Mr.  Seward 
would  be  no  longer  commander  of  the  commander-in-chief. 
His  prime  ministership  was  gone  from  him,  and  he  sank 
down  into  the  comparatively  humble  position  of  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs.  His  letires  de  cachet  no  longer  ran. 
His  passport  system  was  repealed.  His  prisoners  were  re- 
leased. And  though  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  writs  of 
habeas  corpus  were  no  longer  suspended,  the  effect  and  very 
meaning  of  the  suspension  were  at  once  altered.  When  I 
first  left  Washington,  Mr.  Seward  was  the  only  minister  of 
the  cabinet  whose  name  was  ever  mentioned  with  reference 
to  any  great  political  measure.  When  I  returned  to  Wash- 
ington, Mr.  Stanton  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  leading  minister, 
and,  as  Secretary  of  War,  had  practically  the  management 
of  the  army  and  of  the  internal  police. 

I  have  spoken  here  of  Mr.  Seward  by  name,  and  in  my 
preceding  paragraphs  I  have  alluded  with  some  asperity  to 
the  dishonesty  of  certain  men  who  had  obtained  political 
power  under  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  used  it  for  their  own  dishon- 
est purposes.  I  trust  that  I  may  not  be  understood  as 
bringing  any  such  charges  against  Mr.  Seward.  That  such 
dishonesty  has  been  frightfully  prevalent  all  men  know  who 
knew  anything  of  Washington  during  the  year  186L  In  a 
former  chapter  I  have  alluded  to  this  more  at  length,  stating 
circumstances,  and  in  some  cases  giving  the  names  of  the 
persons  charged  with  offenses.  Whenever  I  have  done  so, 
I  have  based  my  statements  on  the  Yan  Wyck  report,  and 
the  evidence  therein  given.  This  is  the  published  report  of 
a  committee  appointed  by  the  House  of  Ilepresentatives ; 
and  as  it  has  been  before  the  world  for  some  months  with- 
out refutation,  I  think  that  I  have  a  right  to  presume  it  to 


172 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


he  true.*  On  no  less  authority  than  this  would  I  con- 
sider mj'self  justified  in  bringing  any  such  charge.  Of  Mr. 
Seward's  incompetency  I  have  heard  very  much  among 
American  })oliticians ;  much  also  of  his  ambition.  "With 
worse  offenses  than  these  I  have  not  heard  him  charged. 

At  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing,  February,  1862,  the 
long  list  of  military  successes  which  attended  the  Northern 
army  through  the  late  winter  and  early  spring  had  com- 
menced. Fort  Henry,  on  the  Tennessee  River,  had  first 
been  taken,  and  after  tha't,  Fort  Donelson,  on  the  Cumber- 
land River,  also  in  the  State,  Tennessee.  Price  had  been 
driven  out  of  Missouri  into  Arkansas  by  General  Curtis, 
acting  under  General  Halleck's  orders.  The  chief  body  of 
the  Confederate  army  in  the  West  had  abandoned  the  forti- 
fied position  which  they  had  long  held  at  Bowling  Green,  in 
the  southwestern  district  of  Kentucky.  Roanoke  Island,  on 
the  coast  of  North  Carolina,  had  been  taken  by  General 
Burnside's  expedition,  and  a  belief  had  begun  to  manifest 
itself  in  Washington  that  the  army  of  the  Potomac  was 
really  about  to  advance.  It  is  impossible  to  explain  in 
what  way  the  renewed  confidence  of  the  Northern  party 
showed  itself,  or  how  one  learned  that  the  hopes  of  the  se- 
cessionists were  waxing  dim ;  but  it  was  so ;  and  even  a 
stranger  became  aware  of  the  general  feeling  as  clearly  as 
though  it  were  a  defined  and  established  fact.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  winter,  when  I  reached  Washington,  the  feeling 
ran  all  the  other  way.  Northern  men  did  not  say  that  they 
were  despondent ;  they  did  not  with  spoken  words  express 
diffidence  as  to  their  success ;  but  their  looks  betrayed  diffi- 
dence, and  the  moderation  of  their  self-assurance  almost 
amounted  to  despondency.  In  the  capital  the  parties  were 
very  much  divided.  The  old  inhabitants  were  either  seces- 
sionists or  influenced  by  "secession  proclivities,"  as  the 
word  went;  but  the  men  of  the  government  and  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress  were,  with  a  few  exceptions,  of  course 
Northern.    It  should  be  understood  that  these  parties  were 


*  I  ought  perhaps  to  state  that  General  Fremont  has  published  an 
answer  to  the  charges  preferred  against  him.  That  answer  refers 
chiefly  to  matters  of  military  capacity  or  incapacity,  as  to  which  I 
have  expressed  no  opinion.  General  Fremont  does  allude  to  the  ac- 
cusations made  against  him  regarding  the  building  of  the  forts  ;  but 
in  doing  so  he  seems  to  me  rather  to  admit  than  to  deny  the  facts  as 
stated  by  the  committee 


FEELINGS  OF  THE  NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 


173 


at  variance  with  each  other  on  almost  every  point  as  to 
which  men  can  disagree.  In  our  civil  war  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed that  all  Englishmen  were  at  any  rate  anxious  for 
England.  They  desired  and  fought  for  different  modes  of 
government;  but  each  party  was  equally  English  in  its  am- 
bition. In  the  States  there  is  the  hatred  of  a  different 
nationality  added  to  the  rancor  of  different  politics.  The 
Southerners  desire  to  be  a  people  of  themselves — to  divide 
themselves  by  every  possible  mark  of  division  from  New 
England;  to  be  as  little  akin  to  New  York  as  they  are  to 
London,  or,  if  possible,  less  so.  Their  habits,  they  say,  are 
different;  their  education,  their  beliefs,  their  propensities, 
their  very  virtues  and  vices  are  not  the  education,  or  the 
beliefs,  or  the  propensities,  or  the  virtues  and  vices  of  the 
North.  The  bond  that  ties  them  to  the  North  is  to  them  a 
Mezentian  marriage,  and  they  hate  their  Northern  spouses 
with  a  Mezentian  hatred.  They  would  be  anything  sooner 
than  citizens  of  the  United  States.  They  see  to  what  Mexico 
has  come,  and  the  republics  of  Central  America ;  but  the 
prospect  of  even  that  degradation  is  less  bitter  to  them 
than  a  share  in  the  glory  of  the  stars  and  stripes.  Better, 
with  them,  to  reign  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven  !  It  is  not 
only  in  politics  that  they  will  be  beaten,  if  they  be  beaten, 
as  one  party  with  us  may  be  beaten  by  another ;  but  they 
will  be  beaten  as  we  should  be  beaten  if  France  annexed 
US,  and  directed  that  we  should  live  under  French  rule. 
Let  an  Englishman  digest  and  realize  that  idea,  and  he  will 
comprehend  the  feelings  of  a  Southern  gentleman  as  he  con- 
templates the  probability  that  his  State  will  be  brought 
back  into  the  Union.  And  the  Northern  feeling  is  as 
strong.  The  Northern  man  has  founded  his  national  am- 
bition on  the  territorial  greatness  of  his  nation.  He  has 
panted  for  new  lands,  and  for  sti.l  extended  boundaries. 
The  Western  World  has  opened  her  arms  to  him,  and  has 
seemed  to  welcome  him  as  her  only  lord.  British  America 
has  tempted  him  toward  the  north,  and  Mexico  has  been  as 
a  prey  to  him  on  the  south.  He  has  made  maps  of  his 
empire,  including  all  the  continent,  and  has  preached  the 
Monroe  doctrine  as  though  it  had  been  decreed  by  the  gods. 
He  has  told  the  world  of  his  increasing  millions,  and  has 
never  yet  known  his  store  to  diminish.  He  has  pawed  in 
the  valley,  and  rejoiced  in  his  strength.  He  has  said  among 
the  trumpets,  ha  !  ha  I  He  has  boasted  aloud  in  his  pride, 
VOL.  n. — 15* 


Hi 


NORTH  A^IERICA. 


and  called  on  all  men  to  look  at  his  glory.  And  now  shall 
he  be  divided  and  shorn  ?  Shall  he  be  hemmed  in  from  his 
ocean,  and  shut  off  from  his  rivers?  Shall  he  have  a  hook 
run  into  his  nostrils,  and  a  thorn  driven  into  his  jaw  ?  Shall 
men  say  that  his  day  is  over,  when  he  has  hardly  yet  tasted 
the  full  cup  of  his  success  ?  Has  his  young  life  been  a 
dream,  and  not  a  truth  ?  Shall  he  never  reach  that  giant 
manhood  which  the  growth  of  his  boyish  years  has  prom- 
ised him  ?  If  the  South  goes  from  him,  he  will  be  divided, 
shorn,  and  hemmed  in.  The  hook  will  have  pierced  his 
nose,  and  the  thorn  will  fester  in  his  jaw.  Men  will  taunt 
liim  with  his  former  boastings,  and  he  will  awake  to  find 
lumself  but  a  mortal  among  mortals. 

Such  is  the  light  in  which  the  struggle  is  regarded  by  the 
two  parties,  and  such  the  hopes  and  feelings  which  have 
been  engendered.  It  may  therefore  be  surmised  with  what 
amount  of  neighborly  love  secessionists  and  Northern  neigh- 
bors regarded  each  other  in  such  towns  as  Baltimore  and 
Washington.  Of  course  there  was  hatred  of  the  deepest 
dye ;  of  course  there  were  muttered  curses,  or  curses  which 
sometimes  were  not  simply  muttered.  Of  course  there  was 
wretchedness,  heart-burnings,  and  fearful  divisions  in  fami- 
lies. That,  perhaps,  was  the  worst  of  all.  The  daughter's 
husband  would  be  in  the  Northern  ranks,  while  the  son  was 
fighting  in  the  South ;  or  two  sons  would  hold  equal  rank 
in  the  two  armies,  sometimes  sending  to  each  other  fright- 
ful threats  of  personal  vengeance.  Old  friends  would  meet 
each  other  in  the  street,  passing  without  speaking ;  or,  worse 
still,  would  utter  words  of  insult  for  which  payment  is  to  be 
demanded  when  a  Southern  gentleman  may  again  be  allowed 
to  quarrel  in  his  own  defense. 

And  yet  society  went  on.  Women  still  smiled,  and  men 
were  happy  to  whom  such  smiles  were  given.  Cakes  and 
ale  were  going,  and  ginger  was  still  hot  in  the  mouth. 
When  many  were  together  no  words  of  unhappiness  were 
heard.  It  was  at  those  small  meetings  of  two  or  three  that 
women  would  weep  instead  of  smiling,  and  that  men  would 
run  their  hands  through  their  hair  and  sit  in  silence,  think- 
ing of  their  ruined  hopes  and  divided  children. 

I  have  spoken  of  Southern  hopes  and  Northern  fears, 
and  have  endeavored  to  explain  the  feelings  of  each  party. 
For  myself  I  think  that  the  Southerners  have  been  wrong 
in  their  hopes,  and  that  those  of  the  North  have  been  wrong 


HOPES  OF  THE  SOUTH  AND  FEARS  OF  THE  NORTH.   It 5 

in  their  fears.  It  is  not  better  to  rule  in  hell  than  serve  in 
heaven.  Of  course  a  Southern  gentleman  will  not  admit 
the  premises  which  are  here  by  me  taken  for  granted.  The 
hell  to  which  I  allude  is,  the  sad  position  of  a  low  and  de- 
based nation.  Such,  I  think,  will  be  the  fate  of  the  Gulf 
States,  if  they  succeed  in  obtaining  secession — of  a  low  and 
debased  nation,  or,  worse  still,  of  many  low  and  debased 
nations.  They  will  have  lost  their  cotton  monopoly  by  the 
competition  created  during  the  period  of  the  war,  and  will 
have  DO  material  of  greatness  on  which  either  to  found 
themselves  or  to  flourish.  That  they  had  much  to  bear 
when  linked  with  the  North,  much  to  endure  on  account  of 
that  slavery  from  which  it  was  all  but  impossible  that  they 
should  disentangle  themselves,  may  probably  be  true.  But 
so  have  all  political  parties  among  all  free  nations  much  to 
bear  from  political  opponents,  and  yet  other  free  nations  do 
not  go  to  pieces.  Had  it  been  possible  that  the  slaveowners 
and  slave  properties  should  have  been  scattered  in  parts 
through  all  the  States  and  not  congregated  in  the  South, 
the  slave  party  would  have  maintained  itself  as  other  par- 
ties do;  but  in  such  case,  as  a  matter  of  course,  it  would 
not  have  thought  of  secession.  It  has  been  the  close  vi- 
cinity of  slaveowners  to  each  other,  the  fact  that  their 
lands  have  been  coterminous,  that  theirs  was  especially  a 
cotton  district,  which  has  tempted  them  to  secession.  They 
have  been  tempted  to  secession,  and  will,  as  I  think,  still 
achieve  it  in  those  Gulf  States,  much  to  their  misfortune. 

And  the  fears  of  the  Xorth  are,  I  think,  equally  wrong. 
That  they  will  be  deceived  as  to  that  Monroe  doctrine  is 
no  doubt  more  than  probable.  .  That  ambition  for  an  entire 
continent  under  one  rule  will  not,  I  should  say,  be  gratified. 
But  not  on  that  account  need  the  nation  be  less  great,  or 
its  civilization  less  extensive.  That  hook  in  its  nose  and 
that  thorn  in  its  jaw  will,  after  all,  be  but  a  hook  of  the 
imagination  and  an  ideal  thorn.  Do  not  all  great  men 
suffer  such  ere  their  greatness  be  established  and  acknowl- 
edged ?  There  is  scope  enough  for  all  that  manhood  can 
do  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  even  though  those 
hot,  swampy  cotton  fields  be  taken  away ;  even  though  the 
snows  of  the  British  provinces  be  denied  to  them.  And  as 
for  those  rivers  and  that  sea-board,  the  Americans  of  the 
North  will  have  lost  much  of  their  old  energy  and  usual 
force  of  will  if  any  Southern  confederacy  be  allowed  to 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


deny  their  right  of  way  or  to  stop  their  commercial  enter- 
prises. I  believe  that  the  South  will  be  badly  off  without 
the  North ;  but  I  feel  certain  that  the  North  will  never 
miss  the  South  when  once  the  wounds  to  her  pride  have 
been  closed. 

From  Washington  I  journeyed  back  to  Boston  through 
the  cities  which  1  had  visited  in  coming  thither,  and  stayed 
again  on  my  route,  for  a  few  days,  at  Baltimore,  at  Philadel- 
phia, and  at  New  York.  At  each  town  there  were  those 
whom  I  now  regarded  almost  as  old  friends,  and  as  the 
time  of  my  departure  drew  near  I  felt  a  sorrow  that  I  was 
not  to  be  allowed  to  stay  longer.  As  the  general  result  of 
my  sojourn  in  the  country,  I  must  declare  that  I  was  always 
happy  and  comfortable  in  the  Eastern  cities,  and  generally 
unhappy  and  uncomfortable  in  the  West.  I  had  previously 
been  inclined  to  think  that  I  should  like  the  roughness  of  the 
West,  and  that  in  the  East  I  should  encounter  an  arrogance 
which  would  have  kept  me  always  on  the  verge  of  hot 
water;  but  in  both  these  surmises  I  found  myself  to  have 
been  wrong.  And  I  think  that  most  English  travelers 
would  come  to  the  same  conclusion.  The  Western  people 
do  not  mean  to  be  harsh  or  uncivil,  but  they  do  not  make 
themselves  pleasant.  In  all  the  Eastern  cities — I  speak  of  the 
Eastern  cities  north  of  W^ashington — a  society  may  be  found 
which  must  be  esteemed  as  agreeable  by  Englishmen  who 
like  clever,  genial  men,  and  who  love  clever,  pretty  women. 

I  was  forced  to  pass  twice  again  over  the  road  between 
New  York  and  Boston,  as  the  packet  by  which  I  intended 
to  leave  America  was  fixed  to  sail  from  the  former  port.  I 
had  promised  myself,  and  had  promised  others,  that  I  would 
spend  in  Boston  the  last  week  of  my  sojourn  in  the  States, 
and  this  was  a  promise  which  I  was  by  no  means  inclined 
to  break.  If  there  be  a  gratification  in  this  world  which 
has  no  alloy,  it  is  that  of  going  to  an  assured  welcome. 
The  belief  that  men's  arms  and  hearts  are  open  to  receive 
one — and  the  arms  and  hearts  of  women,  too,  as  far  as  they 
allow  themselves  to  open  them — is  the  salt  of  the  earth, 
the  sole  remedy  against  sea-sickness,  the  only  cure  for  the 
tedium  of  railways,  the  one  preservative  amid  all  the  mise- 
ries and  fatigue  of  travail.  These  matters  are  private,  and 
should  hardly  be  told  of  in  a  book;  but  in  writing  of  the 
States,  I  should  not  do  justice  to  my  own  convictions  of 
the  country  if  I  did  not  say  how  pleasantly  social  inter- 


SLEIGHING  IN  BOSTON. 


course  there  will  ripen  into  fricndsliip,  and  how  full  of  love 
that  friendship  may  become.  I  became  enamored  of  Boston 
at  last.  Beacon  Street  was  very  pleasant  to  me,  and  the 
view  over  Boston  Common  was  dear  to  my  eyes.  Even 
the  State  House,  with  its  great  yellow-painted  dome,  be- 
came sightly,  and  the  sunset  over  the  western  waters  that 
encompass  the  city  beats  all  other  sunsets  that  I  have  seen. 

During  my  last  week  there  the  world  of  Boston  was 
moving  itself  on  sleighs.  There  was  not  a  wheel  to  be 
seen  in  the  town.  The  omnibuses  and  public  carriages  had 
been  dismounted  from  their  axles  and  put  themselves  upon 
snow-runners,  and  the  private  world  had  taken  out  its  win- 
ter carriages,  and  wrapped  itself  up  in  buffalo  robes.  Men 
now  spoke  of  the  coming  thaw  as  of  a  misfortune  which 
must  come,  but  which  a  kind  Providence  might  perhaps- 
postpone  —  as  we  all,  in  short,  speak  of  death.  In  the 
morning  the  snow  would  have  been  hardened  by  the  night's 
frost,  and  men  would  look  happy  and  contented.  By  an 
hour  after  noon  the  streets  would  be  all  wet  and  the  ground 
would  be  slushy,  and  men  would  look  gloomy  and  speak  of 
speedy  dissolution.  There  were  those  who  would  always 
prophesy  that  the  next  day  would  see  the  snow  converted 
into  one  dull,  dingy  river.  Such  I  regarded  as  seers  of 
tribulation,  and  endeavored  with  all  my  mind  to  disbelieve 
their  interpretations  of  the  signs.  That  sleighing  was  ex- 
cellent fun.  For  myself  I  must  own  that  I  hardly  saw  the 
best  of  it  at  Boston,  for  the  coming  of  the  end  was  already 
at  hand  when  I  arrived  there,  and  the  fresh  beauty  of  the 
hard  snow  was  gone.  Moreover,  when  I  essayed  to  show 
my  prowess  with  a  pair  of  horses  on  the  established  course 
for  such  equipage,  the  beasts  ran  away,  knowing  that  I  was 
not  practiced  in  the  use  of  snow  chariots,  and  brought  me 
to  grief  and  shame.  There  was  a  lady  with  me  in  the  sleigh, 
whom,  for  awhile,  I  felt  that  I  was  doomed  to  consign  to  a 
snowy  grave — whom  I  would  willingly  have  overturned  into 
a  drift  of  snow,  so  as  to  avoid  worse  consequences,  had  I 
only  known  how  to  do  so.  But  Providence,  even  though 
without  curbs  and  assisted  only  by  simple  snaffles,  did  at 
last  prevail,  and  I  brought  the  sleigh,  horses,  and  lady  aiive 
back  to  Boston,  whether  with  or  without  permanent  injury 
I  have  never  yet  ascertained. 

At  last  the  day  of  tribulation  came,  and  the  snow  was 
picked  up  and  carted  out  of  Boston.    Gangs  of  men,  stand- 


178 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ing  shoulder  to  shoulder,  were  at  work  along  the  chief 
streets,  picking,  shoveling,  and  disposing  of  the  dirty 
blocks.  Even  then  the  snow  seemed  to  be  nearly  a  foot 
thick ;  but  it  was  dirty,  rough,  half  melted  in  some  places, 
though  hard  as  stone  in  others.  The  labor  and  cost  of 
cleansing  the  city  in  this  way  must  be  very  great.  The 
people  were  at  it  as  I  left,  and  I  felt  that  the  day  of  tribu- 
lation had  in  truth  come. 

Farewell  to  thee,  thou  Western  Athens !  When  I  have 
forgotten  thee,  my  right  hand  shall  have  forgotten  its  cun- 
ning, and  my  heart  forgotten  its  pulses.  Let  us  look  at 
the  list  of  names  with  which  Boston  has  honored  itself  in 
our  days,  and  then  ask  what  other  town  of  the  same  size 
has  done  more,  Prescott,  Bancroft,  Motley,  Longfellow, 
Lowell,  Emerson,  Dana,  Agassiz,  Holmes,  Hawthorne! 
Who  is  there  among  us  in  England  who  has  not  been  the 
better  for  these  men  ?  Who  does  not  owe  to  some  of  them 
a  debt  of  gratitude  ?  In  whose  ears  is  not  their  names 
familiar  ?  It  is  a  bright  galaxy,  and  far  extended,  for  so 
small  a  city.  What  city  has  done  better  than  this?  All 
these  men,  save  one,  are  now  alive  and  in  the  full  posses- 
sion of  their  powers.  What  other  town  of  the  same  size 
has  done  as  well  in  the  same  short  space  of  time  ?  It  may 
be  that  this  is  the  Augustan  era  of  Boston — its  Elizabethan 
time.  If  so,  I  am  thankful  that  my  steps  have  wandered 
thither  at  such  a  period. 

While  I  was  at  Boston  I  had  the  sad  privilege  of  attend- 
ing the  funeral  of  President  Felton,  the  head  of  Harvard 
College,  A  few  months  before  I  had  seen  him  a  strong 
man,  apparently  in  perfect  health  and  in  the  pride  of  life. 
When  I  reached  Boston  I  heard  of  his  death.  He  also  was 
an  accomplished  scholar,  and  as  a  Grecian  has  left  few 
behind  him  who  were  his  equals.  At  his  installation  as 
president,  four  ex-presidents  of  Harvard  College  assisted. 
Whether  they  were  all  present  at  his  funeral  I  do  not  know, 
but  I  do  know  that  they  were  all  still  living.  These  are 
Mr.  Quincy,  who  is  now  over  ninety;  Mr.  Sparks;  Mr. 
Everett,  the  well-known  orator;  and  Mr.  Walker.  They 
all  reside  in  Boston  or  its  neighliorhood,  and  will  probably 
all  assist  at  the  installation  of  another  president. 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.        IT 9 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

It  is,  I  presume,  universally  known  that  the  citizens  of  the 
"Western  American  colonies  of  Great  Britain  which  revolted, 
declared  themselves  to  be  free  from  British  dominion  by  an 
act  which  they  called  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
This  was  done  on  the  4th  of  July,  17 1 6,  and  was  signed  by 
delegates  from  the  thirteen  colonies,  or  States  as  they  then 
called  themselves.  These  delegates  in  this  document  declare 
themselves  to  be  the  representatives  of  the  United  States 
of  America  in  general  Congress  assembled.  The  opening 
and  close  of  this  declaration  have  in  them  much  that  is 
grand  and  striking ;  the  greater  part  of  it,  however,  is  given 
up  to  enumerating,  in  paragraph  after  paragraph,  the  sins 
committed  by  George  III.  against  the  colonies.  Poor 
George  III.  I  There  is  no  one  now  to  say  a  good  word  for 
him ;  but  of  all  those  who  have  spoken  ill  of  him,  this 
declaration  is  the  loudest  in  its  censure. 

In  the  following  year,  on  the  15th  of  November,  17Y7, 
w^ere  drawn  up  the  Articles  of  Confederation  between  the 
States,  by  which  it  was  then  intended  that  a  sufficient  bond 
and  compact  should  be  made  for  their  future  joint  existence 
and  preservation.  A  reference  to  this  document  will  show 
how  slight  was  the  then  intended  bond  of  union  between 
the  States.  The  second  article  declares  that  each  State 
retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and  independence.  The 
third  article  avows  that  "the  said  States  hereby  severally 
enter  into  a  firm  league  of  friendship  with  each  other  for 
their  common  defense,  the  security  of  their  liberties,  and 
their  mutual  and  general  welfare,  binding  themselves  to 
assist  each  other  against  all  force  offered  to,  or  attacks 
made  upon,  them,  or  any  of  them,  on  account  of  religion, 
sovereignty,  trade,  or  any  other  pretext  whatever."  And 
the  third  article,  "the  better  to  secure  and  perpetuate 
mutual  friendship,"  declares  that  the  free  citizens  of  one 


180 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


State  shall  be  free  citizens  of  another.  From  this  it  is,  I 
think,  manifest  that  no  idea  of  one  united  nation  had  at 
that  time  been  received  and  adopted  by  the  citizens  of  the 
States.  The  articles  then  go  on  to  define  the  way  ia  v.^hich 
Congress  shall  assemble  and  what  shall  be  its  powers.  This 
Congress  was  to  exercise  the  authority  of  a  national  gov- 
ernment rather  than  perform  the  work  of  a  national  parlia- 
ment. It  was  intended  to  be  executive  rather  than  legisla- 
tive. It  was  to  consist  of  delegates,  the  very  number  of 
which  within  certain  limits  was  to  be  left  to  the  option  of 
the  individual  States,  and  to  this  Congress  was  to  be  con- 
fided certain  duties  and  privileges,  which  could  not  be  per- 
formed or  exercised  separately  by  the  governments  of  the 
individual  States.  One  speci:,l  article,  the  eleventh,  enjoins 
that  "  Canada,  acceding  to  the  Confederation,  and  joining 
in  the  measures  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  admitted  into 
and  entitled  to  all  the  advantages  of  this  Union ;  but  no 
other  colony  shall  be  admitted  into  the  same  unless  such 
admission  be  agreed  to  by  nine  States."  I  mention  this  to 
show  how  strong  was  the  expectation  at  that  time  that 
Canada  also  would  revolt  from  England.  Up  to  this  day 
few  Americans  can  understand  why  Canada  has  declined  to 
join  her  lot  to  them. 

But  the  compact  between  the  different  States  made  by 
the  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  the  mode  of  national 
procedure  therein  enjoined,  were  found  to  be  inefficient  for 
the  wants  of  a  people  who  to  be  great  must  be  united  in 
fact  as  well  as  in  name.  The  theory  of  the  most  democratic 
among  the  Americans  of  that  day  was  in  favor  of  self-gov- 
ernment carried  to  an  extreme.  Self-government  was  the 
Utopia  which  they  had  determined  to  realize,  and  they  were 
unwilling  to  diminish  the  reality  of  the  self-government  of 
the  individual  States  by  any  centralization  of  power  in  one 
head,  or  in  one  parliament,  or  in  one  set  of  ministers  for  the 
nation.  For  ten  years,  from  1777  to  1787,  the  attempt  was 
made  ;  but  then  it  was  found  that  a  stronger  bond  of  na- 
tionality was  indispensable,  if  any  national  greatness  was  to 
be  regarded  as  desirable.  Indeed,  all  manner  of  failure  had 
attended  the  mode  of  national  action  ordained  by  the  Ar- 
ticles of  Confederation.  I  am  not  attempting  to  write  a 
history  of  the  United  States,  and  will  not  therefore  trouble 
my  readers  with  historic  details,  which  are  not  of  value 
unless  put  forward  with  historic  weight.    The  fact  of  the 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  181 


failure  is  however  admitted,  and  the  present  written  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  which  is  the  splendid  result 
of  that  failure,  was  "  Done  in  Convention  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  the  States  present."*  Twelve  States  were  pres- 
ent—  Rhode  Island  apparently  having  had  no  representa- 
tive on  the  occasion — on  the  17th  of  September,  1*187,  and 
in  the  twelfth  year  of  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States. 

I  call  the  result  splendid,  seeing  that  under  this  Constitu- 
tion so  written  a  nation  has  existed  for  three-quarters  of  a 
century,  and  has  grown  in  numbers,  power,  and  wealth  till  it 
has  made  itself  the  political  equal  of  the  other  greatest  na- 
tions of  the  earth.  And  it  cannot  be  said  that  it  has  so  grown 
in  spite  of  the  Constitution,  or  by  ignoring  the  Constitution. 
Hitherto  the  laws  there  laid  down  for  the  national  guidance 
have  been  found  adequate  for  the  great  purpose  assigned  to 
them,  and  have  done  all  that  which  the  framers  of  them  hoped 
that  they  might  eSect.  We  all  know  what  has  been  the  fate 
of  the  constitutions  which  were  written  throughout  the  French 
Revolution  for  the  use  of  France.  We  all,  here  in  England, 
have  the  same  ludicrous  conception  of  Utopian  theories  of 
government  framed  by  philosophical  individuals  who  imagine 
that  they  have  learned  from  books  a  perfect  system  of  man- 
aging nations.  To  produce  such  theories  is  especially  the 
part  of  a  Frenchman  ;  to  disbelieve  in  them  is  especially  the 
part  of  an  Englishman.  But  in  the  States  a  system  of  gov- 
ernment has  been  produced,  under  a  written  constitution, 
in  which  no  Englishman  can  disbelieve,  and  which  every 
Frenchman  must  envy.  It  has  done  its  work.  The  people 
have  been  free,  well  educated,  and  politically  great.  Those 
among  us  who  are  most  inclined  at  the  present  moment  to 
declare  that  the  institutions  of  the  United  States  have  failed, 
can  at  any  rate  only  declare  that  they  have  failed  in  their 
finality;  that  they  haye  shown  themselves  to  be  insuflScient 
to  carry  on  the  nation  in  its  advancing  strides  through  all 
times.    They  cannot  deny  that  an  amount  of  success  and 


*  It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that  by  this  "doing  in  con- 
vention," the  Constitution  became  an  accepted  fact.  It  simply 
amounted  to  the  adoption  of  a  proposal  of  the  Constitution.  The 
Constitution  itself  was  formally  adopted  by  the  people  in  conventions 
held  in  their  separate  State  capitals.  It  was  agreed  to  by  the  people 
in  1788,  and  came  into  operation  in  1789. 
VOL.  II. — 16 


182 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


prosperity,  much  j^reater  than  the  nation  even  expected  for 
itself,  has  been  achieved  under  this  Coustitutiou  and  in  con- 
nection with  it.  If  it  be  so,  they  cannot  disbelieve  in  it. 
Let  those  who  now  say  that  it  is  insufficient,  consider  what 
their  prophecies  regarding  it  would  have  been  had  they  been 
called  on  to  express  their  opinions  concerning  it  when  it 
was  proposed  in  1787.  If  the  future  as  it  has  since  come 
forth  had  then  been  foretold  for  it,  would  not  such  a  proph- 
ecy have  been  a  prophecy  of  success?  That  Constitution 
is  now  at  the  period  of  its  hardest  trial,  and  at  this  moment 
one  may  hardly  dare  to  speak  of  it  with  triumph  ;  but  look- 
ing at  the  nation  even  in  its  present  position,  I  think  I  am 
justilied  in  saying  that  its  Constitution  is  one  in  which  no 
Englishman  can  disbelieve.  When  I  also  say  that  it  is  one 
which  every  Frenchman  must  envy,  perhaps  I  am  improp- 
erly presuming  that  Frenchmen  could  not  look  at  it  with 
Englishmen's  eyes. 

When  the  Constitution  came  to  be  written,  a  man  had 
arisen  in  the  States  who  was  peculiarly  suited  for  the  work 
in  hand  :  he  was  one  of  those  men  to  whom  the  world  owes 
much,  and  of  whom  the  world  in  general  knows  but  little. 
This  was  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  alone  on  the  part  of 
the  great  State  of  New  York  signed  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  The  other  States  sent  two,  three,  four, 
or  more  delegates;  New  York  sent  Hamilton  alone;  but  in 
sending  him  New  York  sent  more  to  the  Constitution  than 
all  the  other  States  together.  I  should  be  hardly  saying 
too  much  for  Hamilton  if  I  were  to  declare  that  all  those 
parts  of  the  Constitution  emanated  from  him  in  which  per- 
manent political  strength  has  abided.  And  yet  his  name 
has  not  been  spread  aljroad  widely  in  men's  mouths.  Of 
Jefferson,  Franklin,  and  Madison  we  have  all  heard  ;  our 
children  speak  of  them,  and  they  are  household  words  in  the 
nursery  of  history.  Of  Hamilton,  however,  it  may,  I  be- 
lieve, be  said  that  he  was  greater  than  any  of  those. 

Without  going  with  minuteness  into  the  early  contests  of 
democracy  in  the  United  States,  I  think  I  may  say  that 
there  soon  arose  two  parties,  each  probably  equally  anxious 
in  the  cause  of  freedom,  one  of  which  was  conspicuous  for 
its  French  predilections  and  the  other  for  its  English  apti- 
tudes. It  was  the  period  of  the  French  Revolution — the 
time  when  the  French  Revolution  had  in  it  as  yet  something 
of  promise  and  had  not  utterly  disgraced  itself.    To  many 


THE  CONSTITUTIOX  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  1^3 


in  America  the  French  theory  of  democracy  not  unnaturally 
endeared  itself,  and  foremost  among  tliese  was  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson. He  was  the  father  of  those  politicians  in  the  States 
who  have  since  taken  the  name  of  Democrats,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  whose  theory  it  has  come  to  pass  that  every- 
thing has  been  referred  to  the  universal  suflrage  of  the 
people.  James  Madison,  who  succeeded  Jefferson  as  Pres- 
ident, was  a  pupil  in  this  school,  as  ifideed  huve  been  most 
of  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States.  At  the  head  of 
the  other  party,  from  which  through  various  denominations 
have  sprung  those  who  now  call  themselves  Republicans, 
was  Alexander  Hamilton.  I  believe  I  may  say  that  all  the 
political  sympathies  of  George  Washington  were  with  the 
same  school.  Washington,  however,  was  rather  a  man  of 
feeling  and  of  action  than  of  theoretical  policy  or  specula- 
tive opinion.  When  the  Constitution  was  written  Jefferson 
was  in  France,  having  been  sent  thither  as  minister  from  the 
United  States,  and  he  therefore  was  debarred  from  concerning 
himself  personally  in  the  matter.  His  views,  however,  were 
represented  by  Madison  ;  and  it  is  now  generally  under- 
stood that  the  Constitution  as  it  stands  is  the  joint  work 
of  Madison  and  Hamilton.*  The  democratic  bias,  of  which 
it  necessarily  contains  much,  and  without  which  it  could  not 
have  obtained  the  consent  of  the  people,  was  furnished  by 
Madison;  but  the  conservative  elements,  of  which  it  pos- 
sesses much  more  than  superficial  observers  of  the  Ameri- 
can form  of  government  are  wont  to  believe,  came  from 
Hamilton. 

The  very  preamble  of  the  Constitution  at  once  declares 
that  the  people  of  the  different  States  do  hereby  join  them- 
selves together  w^ith  the  view  of  forming  themselves  into 
one  nation.  "We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order 
to  form  a  more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure  do- 
mestic tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this 
Constitution  for  the  United  States  of  America."  Here  a 
great  step  was  made  toward  centralization,  toward  one  ua- 


*  It  should,  perhaps,  be  explained  that  the  views  of  Madisou  were 
originally  not  opposed  to  those  of  Hamilton.  ^Madison,  however, 
gradually  adopted  the  policy  of  Jefferson — ^his  policy  rather  than  his 
philosophy. 


18-4 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tional  govornraent,  and  the  binding  together  of  the  States 
into  one  nation.  But  from  that  time  down  to  the  present 
the  contest  has  been  going  on,  sometimes  openly  and  some- 
times only  within  the  minds  of  men,  between  the  still  alleged 
sovereignty  of  the  individual  States  and  the  acknowledged 
sovereignty  of  the  central  Congress  and  central  government. 
The  disciples  of  Jefferson,  even  though  they  have  not  known 
themselves  to  be  his  disciples,  have  been  carrying  on  that 
fight  for  State  rights  which  has  ended  in  secession  ;  and  the 
disciples  of  Hamilton,  certainly  not  knowing  themselves  to 
be  his  disciples,  have  been  making  that  stand  for  central 
government,  and  for  the  one  acknowledged  republic,  which 
is  now  at  work  in  opposing  secession,  and  which,  even  though 
secession  should  to  some  extent  be  accomplished,  will,  we 
may  hope,  nevertheless,  and  not  the  less  on  account  of  such 
secession,  conquer  and  put  down  the  spirit  of  democracy. 

The  political  contest  of  parties  which  is  being  waged  now, 
and  which  has  been  waged  throughout  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  has  been  pursued  on  one  side  in  support  of 
that  idea  of  an  undivided  nationality  of  which  I  have  spoken 
— of  a  nationality  in  which  the  interests  of  a  part  should 
be  esteemed  as  the  interests  of  the  whole;  and  on  the  other 
side  it  has  been  pursued  in  opposition  to  that  idea.  I  will 
not  here  go  into  the  interminable  question  of  slavery — 
though  it  is  on  that  question  that  the  Southern  or  demo- 
cratic States  have  most  loudly  declared  their  own  sovereign 
rights  and  their  aversion  to  national  interference.  Were  I 
to  do  so  I  should  fail  in  my  present  object  of  explaining 
the  nature  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  But 
I  protest  against  any  argument  which  shall  be  used  to  show 
that  the  Constitution  has  failed  because  it  has  allowed 
slavery  to  produce  the  present  division  among  the  States. 
I  myself  think  that  the  Southern  or  Gulf  States  will  go.  I 
•will  not  pretend  to  draw  the  exact  line  or  to  say  how  many 
of  them  are  doomed  ;  but  I  believe  that  South  Carolina, 
with  Georgia  and  perhaps  five  or  six  others,  will  be  ex- 
truded from  the  Union.  But  their  very  extrusion  will  be  a 
political  success,  and  will  in  fact  amount  to  a  virtual  ac- 
knowledgment in  the  body  of  the  Union  of  the  truth  of 
that  system  for  which  the  conservative  Republican  party 
has  contended.  If  tlic  North  obtain  the  power  of  settling 
that  question  of  boundary,  the  abandonment  of  those  South- 
ern States  will  be  a  success,  even  though  the  privilege  of 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  185 


retaining  them  be  the  very  point  for  which  the  North  i>s 
now  in  arms. 

The  first  clause  of  the  Constitution  declares  that  all 
the  legislative  powers  granted  by  the  Constitution  shall  be 
vested  in  a  Congress,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and 
of  a  House  of  Representatives.  The  House  of  Represent- 
atives is  to  be  rechosen  every  two  years,  and  shall  be  elected 
by  the  people,  such  persons  in  each  State  having  votes  for 
the  national  Congress  as  have  votes  for  the  legislature  of 
their  own  States.  If,  therefore,  South  Carolina  should 
choose — as  she  has  chosen — to  declare  that  the  electors  of 
her  own  legislature  shall  possess  a  property  qualification, 
the  electors  of  members  of  Congress  from  South  Carolina 
must  also  have  that  qualification.  In  Massachusetts  uni- 
versal suffrage  now  prevails,  although  it  is  not  long  since  p 
low  property  qualification  prevailed  even  in  Massachusetts. 
It  therefore  follows  that  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives in  Congress  need  by  no  means  be  all  chosen  on 
the  same  principle.  As  a  fact,  universal  sufirage*  and  vote 
by  ballot,  that  is  by  open  voting  papers,  prevail  in  the 
States,  but  they  do  not  so  prevail  by  virtue  of  any  enact- 
ment of  the  Constitution.  The  laws  of  the  States,  how- 
ever, require  that  the  voter  shall  have  been  a  resident  in 
the  State  for  some  period,  and  generally  either  deny  the 
right  of  voting  to  negroes,  or  so  hamper  that  privilege  that 
practically  it  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 

The  Senate  of  the  United  States  is  composed  of  two 
Senators  from  each  State.  These  Senators  are  chosen  for 
six  years,  and  are  elected  in  a  manner  which  shows  the  con- 
servative tendency  of  the  Constitution  with  more  significa- 
tion than  perhaps  any  other  rule  which  it  contains.  This 
branch  of  Congress,  which,  as  I  shall  presently  endeavor  to 
show,  is  by  far  the  more  influential  of  the  two,  is  not  in  any 
way  elected  by  the  people.    "  The  Senate  of  the  United 


*  Perhaps  the  better  word  would  have  been  manhood  suffrage; 
and  even  that  word  should  be  taken  with  certain  restrictions.  Aliens, 
minors,  convicts,  and  men  who  pay  no  taxes  cannot  vote.  In  some 
States  none  can  vote  unless  they  can  read  and  write.  In  some  there 
is  a  property  qualification.  In  all  there  are  special  restrictions 
against  negroes.  There  is  in  none  an  absolutely  universal  suffrage. 
But  I  keep  the  name  as  it  best  expresses  to  us  in  England  the  sys- 
tem of  franchise  which  has  practically  come  to  prevail  in  the  United 
States. 

VOL.  II. — IC* 


186 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


States  shall  be  compovsed  of  two  Senators  from  each  State, 
chosen  by  the  legislature  thereof,  for  six  years,  and  each 
Senator  shall  have  one  voice."  The  Senate  sent  to  Con- 
gress is  therefore  elected  by  the  State  legislatures.  Each 
State  legislature  has  two  Houses ;  and  the  Senators  sent 
from  that  State  to  Congress  are  either  chosen  by  vote  of 
the  two  Houses  voting  together — which  is,  I  believe,  the 
mode  adopted  in  most  States,  or  are  voted  for  in  the  two 
Houses  separately  —  in  which  cases,  when  different  candi- 
dates have  been  nominated,  the  two  Houses  confer  by  com- 
mittees and  settle  the  matter  between  them.  The  con- 
servative purpose  of  the  Constitution  is  here  sufficiently 
evident.  The  intention  has  been  to  take  the  election  of 
the  Senators  away  from  the  people,  and  to  confide  it  to 
that  body  in  each  State  which  may  be  regarded  as  contain- 
ing its  best  trusted  citizens.  It  removes  the  Senators  far 
away  from  the  democratic  element,  and  renders  them  liable 
to  the  necessity  of  no  popular  canvass.  Kor  am  I  aware 
that  the  Constitution  has  failed  in  keeping  the  ground 
which  it  intended  to  hold  in  this  matter.  On  some  points 
its  selected  rocks  and  chosen  standing  ground  have  slipped 
from  beneath  its  feet,  owing  to  the  weakness  of  words  in 
defining  and  making  solid  the  intended  prohibitions  against 
democracy.  The  wording  of  the  Constitution  has  been 
regarded  by  the  people  as  sacred ;  but  the  people  has  con- 
sidered itself  justified  in  opposing  the  spirit  as  long  as  it 
revered  the  letter  of  the  Constitution.  And  this  was  natu- 
ral. For  the  letter  of  the  Constitution  can  be  read  by  all 
men;  but  its  spirit  can  be  understood  comparatively  but 
by  few.  As  regards  the  election  of  the  Senators,  I  believe 
that  it  has  been  fairly  made  by  the  legislatures  of  the  dif- 
ferent States.  I  have  not  heard  it  alleged  that  members 
of  the  State  legislatures  have  been  frequently  constrained 
by  the  outside  popular  voice  to  send  this  or  that  man  as 
Senator  to  Washington.  It  was  clearly  not  the  intention 
of  those  who  wrote  the  Constitution  that  they  should  be  so 
constrained.  But  the  Senators  themselves  in  Washington 
have  submitted  to  restraint.  On  subjects  in  which  the  peo- 
ple are  directly  interested,  they  submit  to  instructions  from 
the  legislatures  which  have  sent  them  as  to  the  side  on 
which  they  shall  vote,  and  justify  themselves  in  voting 
against  their  convictions  by  the  fact  that  they  have  received 
such  instructions.     Such  a  practice,  even  with  the  mem- 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  187 


bers  of  a  House  which  has  been  directly  returned  by  popu- 
lar election,  is,  I  think,  false  to  the  intention  of  the  system. 
It  has  clearly  been  intended  that  confidence  should  be  put 
in  the  chosen  candidate  for  the  term  of  his  duty,  and  that 
the  electors  are  to  be  bound  in  the  expression  of  their 
opinion  by  his  sagacity  and  patriotism  for  that  term.  A 
member  of  a  representative  House  so  chosen,  who  votes  at 
the  bidding  of  his  constituency  in  opposition  to  his  convic- 
tions, is  manifestly  false  to  his  charge,  and  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  be  thus  false  in  deference  to  his  own  personal 
interests,  and  with  a  view  to  his  own  future  standing  with 
his  constituents.  Pledges  before  election  may  be  fair,  be- 
cause a  pledge  given  is  after  all  but  the  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion asked.  A  voter  may  reasonably  desire  to  know  a  can- 
didate's opinion  on  any  matter  of  political  interest  before 
he  votes  for  or  against  him.  The  representative  when  re- 
turned should  be  free  from  the  necessity  of  further  pledges. 
But  if  this  be  true  v/itli  a  House  elected  by  popular  suf- 
frage, how  much  more  than  true  must  it  be  with  a  chamber 
collected  together  as  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  is 
collected  I  Nevertheless,  it  is  the  fact  that  many  Senators, 
especially  those  who  have  been  sent  to  the  House  as  Dem- 
ocrats, do  allow  the  State  legislatures  to  dictate  to  them 
their  votes,  and  that  they  do  hold  themselves  absolved  from 
the  personal  responsibility  of  their  votes  by  such  dictation. 
This  is  one  place  in  which  the  rock  which  was  thought  to 
have  been  firm  has  slipped  away,  and  the  sands  of  democ- 
racy have  made  their  way  through.  But  with  reference  to 
this  it  is  always  in  the  power  of  the  Senate  to  recover  its 
own  ground,  and  re-establish  its  own  dignity;  to  the  peo- 
ple in  this  matter  the  words  of  the  Constitution  give  no 
authority,  and  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  recovery  of  the 
old  practice  is  a  more  conservative  tendency  throughout  the 
country  generally.  That  there  is  such  a  conservative  tend- 
ency, no  one  can  doubt;  the  fear  is  whether  it  may  not 
work  too  quickly  and  go  too  far. 

In  speaking  of  these  instructions  given  to  Senators  at 
Washington,  I  should  explain  that  such  instructions  are  not 
given  by  all  States,  nor  are  they  obeyed  by  all  Senators. 
Occasionally  they  are  made  in  the  form  of  requests,  the 
word ''instruct"  being  purposely  laid  aside.  Requests  of 
the  same  kind  are  also  made  to  Representatives,  who,  as 
they  are  not  returned  by  the  State  legislatures,  are  not  con- 


188 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


siderecl  to  be  subject  to  such  instructions.  The  form  used 
is  as  follows  :  "  We  instruct  our  Senators  and  request  our 
Representatives,"  etc.  etc. 

The  Senators  are  elected  for  six  years,  but  the  same 
Senate  does  not  sit  entire  throughout  that  term.  The  whole 
chamber  is  divided  into  three  equal  portions  or  classes,  and 
a  portion  goes  out  at  the  end  of  every  second  year ;  so  that 
a  third  of  the  Senate  comes  in  afresh  with  every  new  House 
of  Representatives.  The  "Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  who  is  elected  with  the  l*resident,  and  who  is  not  a 
Senator  by  election  from  any  State,  is  the  ex-officio  Presi- 
dent of  the  Senate.  Should  the  President  of  the  United 
States  vacate  his  seat  by  death  or  otherwise,  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent becomes  President  of  the  United  States ;  and  in  such 
case  the  Senate  elects  its  own  President  pro  tempore. 

In  speaking  of  the  Senate,  I  must  point  out  a  matter  to 
which  the  Constitution  does  not  allude,  but  which  is  of  the 
gravest  moment  in  the  political  fabric  of  the  nation.  Each 
State  sends  two  Senators  to  Congress.  These  two  are  sent 
altogether  independently  of  the  population  w^hich  they  repre- 
sent, or  of  the  number  of  members  which  the  same  State  sup- 
plies to  the  Lower  House.  When  the  Constitution  was  framed, 
Delaware  was  to  send  one  member  to  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  Pennsylvania  eight ;  nevertheless,  each  of 
these  States  sent  two  Senators.  It  would  seem  strange  that 
a  young  people,  commencing  business  as  a  nation  on  a  basis 
intended  to  be  democratic,  should  consent  to  a  system  so 
directly  at  variance  with  the  theory  of  popular  representa- 
tion. It  reminds  one  of  the  old  days  when  Yorkshire 
returned  two  members,  and  Rutlandshire  two  also.  And 
the  discrepancy  has  greatly  increased  as  young  States  have 
been  added  to  the  Union,  while  the  old  States  have  increased 
in  population.  New  York,  with  a  population  of  about 
4,000,000,  and  with  thirty-three  members  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  sends  two  Senators  to  Congress.  The  new 
State  of  Oregon,  with  a  population  of  50,000  or  60,000, 
and  with  one  member  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  sends 
also  two  Senators  to  Congress.  But  though  it  would  seem 
that  in  sucli  a  distribution  of  legislative  pov/er  the  young 
nation  was  determined  to  preserve  some  of  the  old  fantastic 
traditions  of  the  mother  country  which  it  had  just  repu- 
diated, the  fact,  I  believe,  is  that  this  system,  apparently  so 
opposed  to  all  democratic  tendencies,  was  produced  and 


REPRESENTATION. 


189 


specially  insisted  upon  by  democracy  itself.  Where  would 
be  the  State  sovereignty  and  individual  existence  of  Pthode 
Island  and  Delaware,  unless  they  could  maintain,  in  at  least 
one  House  of  Congress,  their  State  equality  with  that  of  all 
other  States  in  the  Union  ?  In  those  early  days,  when  the 
Constitution  was  being  framed,  there  was  nothing  to  force 
the  small  States  into  a  union  with  those  whose  populations 
preponderated.  Each  State  was  sovereign  in  its  municipal 
system,  having  preserved  the  boundaries  of  the  old  colony, 
together  with  the  liberties  and  laws  given  to  it  under  its  old 
colonial  charter.  A  union  might  be  and  no  doubt  was  de- 
sirable ;  but  it  was  to  be  a  union  of  sovereign  States,  each 
retaining  equal  privileges  in  that  union,  and  not  a  fusion  of 
the  different  populations  into  one  homogeneous  whole.  No 
State  was  willing  to  abandon  its  own  individuality,  and 
least  of  all  were  the  small  States  willing  to  do  so.  It  was, 
therefore,  ordained  that  the  House  of  Representatives  should 
represent  the  people,  and  that  the  Senate  should  represent 
the  States. 

From  that  day  to  the  present  time  the  arrangement 
of  which  I  am  speaking  has  enabled  the  Democratic  or 
Southern  party  to  contend  at  a  great  advantage  with 
the  Republicans  of  the  North.  When  the  Constitution 
was  founded,  the  seven  Northern  States  —  I  call  those 
Northern  which  are  now  free-soil  States,  and  those  South- 
ern in  which  the  institution  of  slavery  now  prevails  — 
were  held  to  be  entitled  by  their  population  to  send  thirty- 
five  members  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  they 
sent  fourteen  members  to  the  Senate.  The  six  Southern 
States  were  entitled  to  thirty  members  in  the  Lower  House, 
and  to  twelve  Senators.  Thus  the  proportion  was  about 
equal  for  the  North  and  South.  But  now — or  rather  in 
1860,  when  Recession  commenced — the  Northern  States, 
owing  to  the  increase  of  population  in  the  North,  sent  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Representatives  to  Congress,  having  nine- 
teen States,  and  thirty-eight  Senators;  wheeras  the  South, 
with  fifteen  States  and  thirty  Senators,  was  entitled  by  its 
population  to  only  ninety  Representatives,  although  by  a 
special  rule  in  its  favor,  which  I  will  presently  explain,  it 
was  in  fact  allowed  a  greater  number  of  Representatives,  in 
proportion  to  its  population,  than  the  North.  Had  an  equal 
balance  been  preserved,  the  South,  with  its  ninety  Repre- 
sentatives in  the  Lower  House,  would  have  but  twenty-three 


100 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Senators,  instead  of  thirty,  in  the  Upper.*  But  these  num- 
bers indicate  to  us  the  recovery  of  political  influence  in  the 
North,  rather  than  the  pride  of  the  power  of  the  South; 
for  the  South,  in  its  palmy  days,  had  much  more  in  its  favor 
than  I  have  above  described  as  its  position  in  18G0.  Kan- 
sas had  then  just  become  a  free-soil  State,  after  a  terrible 
struggle,  and  shortly  previous  to  that  Oregon  and  Minne- 
sota, also  free  States,  had  been  added  to  the  Union.  Up  to 
that  date  the  slave  States  sent  thirty  Senators  to  Congress, 
and  the  free  States  only  thirty-two.  In  addition  to  this, 
when  Texas  was  annexed  and  converted  into  a  State,  a 
clause  was  inserted  into  the  act  giving  authority  for  the 
future  subdivision  of  that  State  into  four  different  States  as 
its  population  should  increase,  thereby  enabling  the  South 
to  add  Senators  to  its  own  party  from  time  to  time,  as  the 
Northern  States  might  increase  in  number. 

And  here  I  must  explain,  in  order  that  the  nature  of  the 
contest  may  be  understood,  that  the  Senators  from  the  South 
maintained  themselves  ever  in  a  compact  body,  voting  to- 
gether, true  to  each  other,  disciplined  as  a  party,  under- 
standing the  necessity  of  yielding  in  small  things  in  order 
that  their  general  line  of  policy  might  be  maintained.  But 
there  was  no  such  system,  no  such  observance  of  political 
tactics  among  the  Senators  of  the  North.  Indeed,  they 
appear  to  have  had  no  general  line  of  politics,  having  been 
divided  among  themselves  on  various  matters.  Many  had 
strong  Southern  tendencies,  and  many  more  were  willing  to 
obtain  official  power  by  the  help  of  Soutliern  votes.  There 
was  no  bond  of  union  among  them,  as  slavery  was  among 
the  Senators  from  the  South.  And  thus,  from  these  causes, 
the  power  of  the  Senate  and  the  power  of  the  government 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Southern  party. 

I  am  aware  that  in  going  into  these  matters  here  I  am 
departing  somewhat  from  the  subject  of  which  this  chapter 
is  intended  to  treat;  but  I  do  not  know  that  I  could  explain 
in  any  shorter  way  the  manner  in  which  those  rules  of  the 
Constitution  have  worked  by  which  the  composition  of  the 


*  It  is  woi^thy  of  note  that  the  new  Northern  and  Western  States 
have  been  brought  into  the  Union  by  natural  increase  and  the  spread 
of  population.  But  this  has  not  been  so  with  the  new  Soutliern 
States.  Louisiana  and  Florida  were  purchased,  and  Texas  was — 
annexed. 


REPRESENTATION. 


191 


Senate  is  fixed.  That  State  basis,  as  opposed  to  a  basis  of 
population  in  the  Upper  House  of  Congress,  has  been  the 
one  great  political  weapon,  both  of  offense  and  defense,  in 
the  hands  of  the  Democratic  party.  And  yet  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  deny  that  great  wisdom  was  shown  in  the  framing 
of  the  constitution  of  the  Senate.  It  was  the  object  of 
none  of  the  politicians  then  at  work  to  create  a  code  of 
rules  for  the  entire  governance  of  a  single  nation  such  as  is 
England  or  France.  Nor,  had  any  American  politician  of 
the  time  so  desired,  would  he  have  had  reasonable  hope  of 
success.  A  federal  union  of  separate  sovereign  States  was 
the  necessity,  as  it  was  also  the  desire,  of  all  those  who 
w^ere  concerned  in  the  American  policy  of  the  day ;  and  I 
think  it  may  be  understood  and  maintained  that  no  such 
federal  union  would  have  been  just,  or  could  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  the  smaller  States,  which  did  not  in  some  direct 
way  recognize  their  equality  with  the  larger  States.  It  is 
moreover  to  be  observed,  that  in  this,  as  in  all  matters,  the 
claims  of  the  minority  were  treated  with  indulgence.  No 
ordinance  of  the  Constitution  is  made  in  a  niggardly  spirit. 
It  would  seem  as  though  they  who  met  together  to  do  the 
work  had  been  actuated  by  no  desire  for  selfish  preponder- 
ance or  individual  influence.  No  ambition  to  bind  close  by 
words  which  shall  be  exacting  as  well  as  exact  is  apparent. 
A  very  broad  power  of  interpretation  is  left  to  those  who 
were  to  be  the  future  interpreters  of  the  written  document. 

It  is  declared  that  "representation  and  direct  taxes  shall 
be  apportioned  among  the  several  States  which  may  be  in- 
cluded within  this  Union,  according  to  their  respective  num- 
bers," thereby  meaning  that  representation  and  taxation  in 
the  several  States  shall  be  adjusted  according  to  the  popu- 
lation. This  clause  ordains  that  throughout  all  the  States  a 
certain  amount  of  population  shall  return  a  member  to  the 
Lower  House  of  Congress  —  say  one  member  to  100,000 
persons,  as  is  I  believe  about  the  present  proportion — and 
that  direct  taxation  shall  be  levied  according  to  the  number 
of  representatives.  If  New  York  return  thirty-three  mem- 
bers and  Kansas  one,  on  New  York  shall  be  levied,  for  the 
purposes  of  the  United  States  revenue,  thirty-three  times 
as  much  direct  taxation  as  on  Kansas.  This  matter  of  di- 
rect taxation  was  not  then,  nor  has  it  been  since,  matter  of 
much  moment.  No  direct  taxation  has  hitherto  been  levied 
in  the  United  States  for  national  purposes.    But  the  time 


]92 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


has  now  come  when  this  proviso  will  be  a  terrible  stum- 
bling-block in  the  way. 

But  before  we  go  into  that  matter  of  taxation,  I  must 
explain  how  the  South  was  again  favored  with  reference  to 
its  representation.  As  a  matter  of  course  no  slaves,  or 
even  negroes  —  no  men  of  color  —  were  to  vote  in  the 
Southern  States.  Therefore,  one  would  say,  that  in  count- 
ing up  the  people  with  reference  to  the  number  of  the  rep- 
resentatives, the  colored  population  should  be  ignored  alto- 
gether. But  it  was  claimed  on  behalf  of  the  South  that 
their  property  in  slaves  should  be  represented,  and  in  com- 
pliance with  this  claim,  although  no  slave  can  vote  or  in 
any  way  demand  the  services  of  a  representative,  the  colored 
people  are  reckoned  among  the  population.  When  the  num- 
bers of  the  free  persons  are  counted,  to  this  number  is  added 
"three-fifths  of  all  other  persons."  Five  slaves  are  thus 
supposed  to  represent  three  white  persons.  From  the  word- 
ing, one  would  be  led  to  suppose  that  there  was  some  other 
category  into  which  a  man  might  be  put  besides  that  of 
free  or  slave  1  But  it  may  be  observed,  that  on  this  subject 
of  slavery  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  were  tender- 
mouthed.  They  never  speak  of  slavery  or  of  a  slave.  It 
is  necessary  that  the  subject  should  be  mentioned,  and  there- 
fore we  hear  first  of  persons  other  than  free,  and  then  of 
persons  bound  to  labor ! 

Such  were  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  formation  of  Con- 
gress, and  the  letter  of  those  rules  has,  I  think,  been  strictly 
observed.  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  give  all  the 
clauses,  but  I  believe  I  have  stated  those  which  are  essen- 
tial to  a  general  understanding  of  the  basis  upon  which 
Congress  is  founded. 

The  Constitution  ordains  that  members  of  both  the  Houses 
shall  be  paid  for  their  time,  but  it  does  not  decree  the  amount. 
"The  Senators  and  Representatives  shall  receive  a  compen- 
sation for  their  services,  to  be  ascertained  by  law,  and  paid 
out  of  the  treasury  of  the  United  States."  In  the  remarks 
which  I  have  made  as  to  the  present  Congress  I  have  spoken 
of  the  amount  now  allowed.  The  understanding,  I  believe, 
is  that  the  pay  shall  be  enough  for  the  modest  support  of  a 
man  who  is  supposed  to  have  raised  himself  above  the  heads 
of  the  crowd.  Much  may  be  said  in  favor  of  this  payment 
of  legislators,  but  very  much  may  also  be  said  against 
it.    There  was  a  time  when  our  members  of  the  House  of 


POLITICAL  CORRUPTION. 


193 


Commons  were  entitled  to  payment  for  their  services,  and 
when,  at  any  rate,  some  of  them  took  the  money.  It  may 
be  that  with  a  new  nation  such  an  arrangement  was  abso- 
lutely necessary.  Men  whom  the  people  could  trust,  and 
who  would  have  been  able  to  give  up  their  time  without 
payment,  would  not  have  probably  been  found  in  a  new 
community.  The  choice  of  Senators  and  of  Representatives 
would  have  been  so  limited  that  the  legislative  power  would 
have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  few  rich  men.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  said  that  such  payment  was  absolutely  necessary  in  the 
early  days  of  the  life  of  the  Union.  But  no  one,  I  think, 
will  deny  that  the  tone  of  both  Houses  would  be  raised  by 
the  gratuitous  service  of  the  legislators.  It  is  well  known- 
that  politicians' find  their  way  into  the  Senate  and  into  the 
chamber  of  Representatives  solely  with  a  view  to  the  loaves 
and  fishes.  The  very  word  ''politician"  is  foul  and  unsa- 
vory throughout  the  States,  and  means  rather  a  political 
blackleg  than  a  political  patriot.  It  is  useless  to  blink  this 
matter  in  speaking  of  the  politics  and  policy  of  the  United 
States.  The  corruption  of  the  venal  politicians  of  the  na- 
tion stinks  aloud  in  the  nostrils  of  all  men.  It  behoves 
the  country  to  look  to  this.  It  is  time  now  that  she  should 
do  so.  The  people  of  the  nation  are  educated  and  clever. 
The  women  are  bright  and  beautiful.  Her  charity  is  pro- 
fuse ;  her  philanthropy  is  eager  and  true ;  her  national  am- 
bition is  noble  and  honest — honest  in  the  cause  of  civiliza- 
tion. But  she  has  soiled  herself  with  political  corruption, 
and  has  disgraced  the  cause  of  republican  government  by 
the  dirt  of  those  whom  she  has  placed  in  her  high  places. 
Let  her  look  to  it  now.  She  is  nobly  ambitious  of  reputa- 
tion throughout  the  earth ;  she  desires  to  be  called  good  as 
well  as  great ;  to  be  regarded  not  only  as  powerful,  but  also 
as  beneficent.  She  is  creating  an  army;  she  is  forging  can- 
non, and  preparing  to  build  impregnaljle  ships  of  war.  But 
all  these  will  fail  to  satisfy  her  pride,  unless  she  can  cleanse 
herself  from  that  corruption  by  which  her  political  democ- 
racy has  debased  itself.  A  politician  should  be  a  man 
worthy  of  all  honor,  in  that  he  loves  his  country;  and  not 
one  worthy  of  all  contempt,  in  that  he  robs  his  country. 

I  must  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  every  Senator 
and  Representative  who  takes  his  pay  is  wrong  in  taking  it. 
Indeed,  I  have  already  expressed  an  opinion  that  such  pay- 
ments were  at  first  necessary,  and  I  by  no  means  now  say 
VOL.  IL  —  IT 


194 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  the  necessity  has  as  yet  disappeared.  In  the  minds  of 
thorough  democrats  it  will  he  considered  much  that  the 
poorest  man  of  the  people  should  be  enabled  to  go  into  the 
legislature,  if  such  poorest  man  be  worthy  of  that  honor. 
I  am  not  a  thorough  democrat,  and  consider  that  more 
would  be  gained  by  obtaining  in  the  legislature  that  educa- 
tion, demeanor,  and  freedom  from  political  temptation  which 
easy  circumstances  produce.  I  am  not,  however,  on  this 
account  inclined  to  quarrel  with  the  democrats — not  on  that 
account  if  they  can  so  manage  their  affairs  that  their  poor 
and  popular  politicians  shall  be  fairly  honest  men.  But  I 
am  a  thorough  republican,  regarding  our  own  English  form 
of  government  as  the  most  purely  republican  that  I  know, 
and  as  such  I  have  a  close  and  warm  sympathy  with  those 
Transatlantic  anti-monarchical  republicans  who  are  endeav- 
oring to  prove  to  the  world  that  they  have  at  length  founded 
a  political  Utopia.  I  for  one  do  not  grudge  them  all  the 
good  they  can  do,  all  the  honor  they  can  win.  But  I  grieve 
over  the  evil  name  which  now  taints  them,  and  which  has 
accompanied  that  wider  spread  of  democracy  which  the 
last  twenty  years  has  produced.  This  longing  for  universal 
suffrage  in  all  things — in  voting  for  the  President,  in  voting 
for  judges,  in  voting  for  the  Representatives,  in  dictating  to 
Senators — has  come  up  since  the  days  of  President  Jackson, 
and  with  it  has  come  corruption  and  unclean  hands.  Democ- 
racy must  look  to  it,  or  the  world  at  large  will  declare  her 
to  have  failed. 

One  would  say  that  at  any  rate  the  Senate  might  be  filled 
with  unpaid  servants  of  the  public.  Each  State  might 
surely  find  two  men  who  could  afford  to  attend  to  the  pub- 
lic weal  of  their  country  without  claiming  a  compensation 
for  their  time.  In  England  we  find  no  difficulty  in  being  so 
served.  Those  cities  among  us  in  which  the  democratic 
element  most  strongly  abounds,  can  procure  representatives 
to  their  minds,  even  though  the  honor  of  filling  the  position 
is  not  only  not  remunerative,  but  is  very  costly.  I  cannot 
but  think  that  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  would  stand 
higher  in  the  public  estimation  of  its  own  country  if  it  were 
an  unpaid  body  of  men. 

It  is  enjoined  that  no  person  holding  any  office  under  the 
United  States  shall  be  a  member  of  either  House  during 
his  continuance  in  office.  At  first  sight  such  a  rule  as  this 
appears  to  be  good  in  its  nature  j  but  a  comparison  of  the 


EXCLUSION  OP  THE  CABINET  FROM  CONGRESS.  195 


practice  of  the  TJnited  States  government  with  that  of  our 
own  makes  me  think  that  this  embargo  on  members  of  the 
legishitive  bodies  is  a  mistake.  It  prohibits  the  President's 
ministers  from  a  seat  in  either  House,  and  thereby  relieves 
them  from  the  weight  of  that  responsibility  to  which  our 
ministers  are  subjected.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  United 
States  ministers  cannot  be  responsible  as  are  our  ministers, 
seeing  that  the  President  himself  is  responsible,  and  that  the 
Queen  is  not  so.  Indeed,  according  to  the  theory  of  the 
American  Constitution,  the  President  has  no  ministers.  The 
Constitution  speaks  only  of  the  principal  officers  of  the  ex- 
ecutive departments.  "He"  (the  President)  "may  require 
the  opinion  in  writing  of  the  principal  officer  in  each  of  the 
executive  departments."  But  in  practice  he  has  his  cabi- 
net, and  the  irresponsibility  of  that  cabinet  would  practi- 
cally cease  if  the  members  of  it  were  subjected  to  the  ques- 
tionings of  the  two  Houses.  With  us  the  rule  which  pro- 
hibits servants  of  the  State  from  going  into  Parliament  is, 
like  many  of  our  constitutional  rules,  hard  to  be  defined, 
and  yet  perfectly  understood.  It  may  perhaps  be  said,  with 
the  nearest  approach  to  a  correct  definition,  that  permanent 
servants  of  the  State  may  not  go  into  Parliament,  and  that 
those  may  do  so  whose  services  are  political,  depending  for 
the  duration  of  their  term  on  the  duration  of  the  existing 
ministry.  But  even  this  would  not  be  exact,  seeing  that 
the  Master  of  the  Rolls  and  the  officers  of  the  army  and 
navy  can  sit  in  Parliament.  The  absence  of  the  President's 
ministers  from  Congress  certainly  occasions  much  confusion, 
or  rather  prohibits  a  more  thorough  political  understand- 
ing between  the  executive  and  the  legislature  than  now  ex- 
ists. In  speaking  of  the  government  of  the  United  States 
in  the  next  chapter,  I  shall  be  constrained  to  allude  again 
to  this  subject* 

The  duties  of  the  House  of  Representatives  are  solely 
legislative.    Those  of  the  Senate  are  legislative  and  exec- 


It  will  be  alleged  by  Americans  that  the  introduction  into  Con- 
gress of  the  President's  ministers  would  alter  all  the  existing  rela- 
tions of  the  President  and  of  Congress,  and  would  at  once  produce 
that  parliamentary  form  of  government  which  England  possesses,  and 
which  the  States  have  chosen  to  avoid.  Such  a  change  would  elevate 
Congress  and  depress  the  President.  No  doubt  this  is  true.  Such 
elevation,  however,  and  such  depression  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  two 
things  needed. 


196 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


utive,  as  with  us  tliose  of  the  Upper  House  are  legislative 
and  judicial.  The  House  of  Representatives  is  always 
open  to  the  public.  The  Senate  is  so  open  when  it  is  en- 
gaged on  legislative  work;  but  it  is  closed  to  the  public 
when  engaged  in  executive  session.  No  treaties  can  be 
made  by  the  President,  and  no  appointments  to  high  offices 
confirmed,  without  the  consent  of  the  Senate ;  and  this  con- 
sent must  be  given — as  regards  the  confirmation  of  treaties 
— by  two-thirds  of  the  members  present.  This  law  gives  to 
the  Senate  the  power  of  debating  with  closed  doors  upon 
the  nature  of  all  treaties,  and  upon  the  conduct  of  the  gov- 
ernment as  evinced  in  the  nomination  of  the  officers  of 
State.  It  also  gives  to  the  Senate  a  considerable  control 
over  the  foreign  relations  of  the  government.  I  believe 
that  this  power  is  often  used,  and  that  by  it  the  influence  of 
the  Senate  is  raised  much  above  that  of  the  Lower  House. 
This  influence  is  increased  again  by  the  advantage  of  that 
superior  statecraft  and  political  knowledge  which  the  six 
years  of  the  Senator  gives  him  over  the  two  years  of  the 
Representative.  The  tried  R.epresentative,  moreover,  very 
frecjuently  blossoms  into  a  Senator;  but  a  Senator  does 
not  frequently  fade  into  a  Representative.  Such  occasion- 
ally is  the  case,  and  it  is  not  even  unconstitutional  for  an 
ex-President  to  reappear  in  either  House.  ^Mr.  Benton, 
after  thirty  years'  service  in  the  Senate,  sat  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  Mr.  Crittenden,  who  was  returned  as 
Senator  by  Kentucky,  I  think  seven  times,  now  sits  in  the 
Lower  House ;  and  John  Quincy  Adams  appeared  as  a 
Representative  from  Massachusetts  after  he  had  filled  the 
presidential  chair. 

And,  moreover,  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  is  not 
debarred  from  an  interference  with  money  bills,  as  the  House 
of  Lords  is  debarred  with  us.  ''AH  bills  for  raising  rev- 
enue," says  the  seventh  section  of  the  first  article  of  the 
Constitution,  "  shall  originate  with  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, but  the  Senate  may  propose  or  concur  with 
amendments  as  on  other  bills."  By  this  the  Senate  is  en- 
abled to  have  an  authority  in  the  money  matters  of  the 
nation  almost  equal  to  that  held  by  the  Lower  House — an 
authority  quite  sufficient  to  preserve  to  it  the  full  influence 
of  its  other  powers.  With  us  the  House  of  Commons  is 
altogether  in  the  ascendant,  because  it  holds  and  jealously 
keeps  to  Itself  the  exclusive  command  of  the  public  puvse. 


DIRECT  TAXATION. 


Congress  can  levy  custom  duties  in  the  United  States, 
and  always  has  done  so  ;  hitherto  the  national  revenue  has 
been  exclusively  raised  from  custom  duties.  It  cannot  levy 
duties  on  exports.  It  can  levy  excise  duties,  and  is  now 
doing  so  ;  hitherto  it  has  not  done  so.  It  can  levy  direct 
taxes,  such  as  an  income  tax  and  a  property  tax  ;  it  hitherto 
has  not  done  so,  but  now  must  do  so.  It  must  do  so,  I 
think  I  am  justified  in  saying  ;  but  its  power  of  doing  this 
is  so  hampered  by  constitutional  enactment,  that  it  would 
seem  that  the  Constitution  as  regards  tliis  heading  must  be 
altered  before  any  scheme  can  be  arranged  by  which  a  mod- 
erately just  income  tax  can  be  levied  and  collected.  This 
difficulty  I  have  already  mentioned,  but  perhaps  it  will  be 
well  that  I  should  endeavor  to  make  the  subject  more  plain. 
It  is  specially  declared  :  That  all  duties,  imposts,  and  ex- 
cises shall  be  uniform  throughout  the  United  States."  And 
again:  "  That  no  capitation  or  other  direct  tax  shall  be  laid, 
unless  in  proportion  to  the  census  or  enumeration  hereinbe- 
fore directed  to  be  taken."  And  again,  in  the  words  before 
quoted :  "  Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  appor- 
tioned among  the  several  States  which  shall  be  included  in 
this  Union,  according  to  their  respective  numbers."  By 
these  repeated  rules  it  has  been  intended  to  decree  that  the 
separate  States  shall  bear  direct  taxation  according  to  their 
population  and  the  consequent  number  of  their  Representa- 
tives ;  and  this  intention  has  been  made  so  clear  that  no 
direct  taxation  can  be  levied  in  opposition  to  it  without  an 
evident  breach  of  the  Constitution.  To  explain  the  way  in 
which  this  will  work,  I  will  name  the  two  States  of  Rhode 
Island  and  Iowa  as  opposed  to  each  other,  and  the  two 
States  of  Massachusetts  and  Indiana  as  opposed  to  each 
other.  Rhode  Island  and  Massaclmsetts  are  wealthy  At- 
lantic States,  containing,  as  regards  enterprise  and  com- 
mercial success,  the  cream  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States.  Comparing  them  in  the  ratio  of  population,  I  be- 
lieve that  they  are  richer  than  any  other  States.  They  return 
between  them  thirteen  Representatives,  Rhode  Island  send- 
ing two  and  Massachusetts  eleven.  Iowa  and  Indiana  also 
send  thirteen  Representatives,  Iowa  sending  two,  and  being 
thus  equal  to  Rhode  Island;  Indiana  sending  eleven,  and 
being  thus  equal  to  Massachusetts.  Iowa  and  Indiana  are 
Western  States  ;  and  though  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that 
they  are  the  poorest  States  of  the  Union,  I  can  assert  that 
VOL.  II.— 17* 


198 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


they  are  exactly  opposite  in  their  circiyjistaiices  to  Rhode 
Island  and  Massachusetts.  The  two  Atlantic  States  of 
New  England  are  old  established,  rich,  and  commercial. 
The  two  Western  States  1  have  named  are  full  of  new  im- 
migrants, are  comparatively  poor,  and  are  agricultural. 
Nevertheless  any  direct  taxation  levied  on  those  in  the 
East  and  on  those  in  the  West  must  be  equal  in  its  weight. 
Iowa  must  pay  as  much  as  Rhode  Island  ;  Indiana  must 
pay  as  much  as  Massachusetts.  But  Rhode  Island  and 
Massachusetts  could  pay,  without  the  sacrifice  of  any  com- 
fort to  its  people,  without  any  sensible  suffering,  an  amount 
of  direct  taxation  which  would  crush  the  States  of  Iowa  and 
Indiana — which  indeed  no  tax  gatherer  could  collect  out  of 
those  States.  Rhode  Island  and  Massachusetts  could  with 
their  ready  money  buy  Iowa  and  Indiana ;  and  yet  the  in- 
come tax  to  be  collected  from  the  poor  States  is  to  be  the 
same  in  amount  as  that  collected  from  the  rich  States. 
Within  each  individual  State  the  total  amount  of  income 
tax  or  of  other  direct  taxation  to  be  levied  from  that  State 
may  be  apportioned  as  the  State  may  think  fit ;  but  an  in- 
come tax  of  two  per  cent,  on  Rhode  Island  would  probably 
produce  more  than  an  income  tax  of  ten  per  cent,  in  Iowa ; 
whereas  Rhode  Island  could  pay  an  income  tax  of  ten  per 
cent,  easier  than  could  Iowa  one  of  two  per  cent. 

It  would  in  fact  appear  that  the  Constitution  as  at  pres- 
ent framed  is  fatal  to  all  direct  taxation.  Any  law  for  the 
collection  of  direct  taxation  levied  under  the  Constitution 
would  produce  internecine  quarrel  between  the  Western 
States  and  those  which  border  on  the  Atlantic.  The  West- 
ern States  would  not  submit  to  the  taxation.  The  difficulty 
which  one  here  feels  is  that  which  always  attends  an  attempt 
at  finality  in  political  arrangements.  One  would  be  inclined 
to  say  at  once  that  the  law  should  be  altered,  and  that  as 
the  money  required  is  for  the  purposes  of  the  Union  and 
for  State  purposes,  such  a  change  should  be  made  as  would 
enable  Congress  to  levy  an  income  tax  on  the  general  in- 
come of  the  nation.  But  Congress  cannot  go  beyond  the 
Constitution. 

It  is  true  that  the  Constitution  is  not  final,  and  that  it 
contains  an  express  article  ordaining  the  manner  in  which  it 
may  be  amended.  And  perhaps  I  may  as  well  explain  here 
the  manner  in  which  this  can  be  done,  although  by  doing 
so  I  am  departing  from  the  order  in  which  the  Constitu- 


MANNER  OF  AMENDING  THE  CONSTITUTION  109 

tion  is  written.  It  is  not  final,  and  amendments  have  been 
made  to  it.  But  the  making  of  such  amendments  is  an 
operation  so  ponderous  and  troublesome  that  tlie  difficulty 
attached  to  any  such  change  envelops  the  Constitution 
with  many  of  the  troubles  of  finality.  With  us  there  is 
nothing  beyond  an  act  of  Parliament.  An  act  of  Parliament 
with  us  cannot  be  unconstitutional.  But  no  such  power  has 
been  confided  to  Congress,  or  to  Congress  and  the  President 
together.  No  amendment  of  the  Constitution  can  be  made 
without  the  sanction  of  the  State  legislatures.  Congress 
may  propose  any  amendments,  as  to  the  expediency  of  which 
two-thirds  of  both  Houses  shall  be  agreed  ;  but  before  such 
amendments  can  be  accepted  they  must  be  ratified  by  the 
legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  States,  or  by  conventions 
in  three-fourths  of  the  States,  "  as  the  one  or  the  other  mode 
of  ratification  may  be  proposed  by  Congress."  Or  Con- 
gress, instead  of  proposing  the  amendments,  may,  on  an  ap- 
plication from  the  legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  the  difterent 
States,  call  a  convention  for  the  proposing  of  them.  In 
which  latter  case  the  ratification  by  the  different  States  must 
be  made  after  the  same  fashion  as  that  required  in  the 
former  case.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing clearly  intelligible  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
Constitution  can  be  amended  ;  but  I  think  I  may  have  suc- 
ceeded in  explaining  that  those  circumstances  are  difficult 
and  tedious.  In  a  matter  of  taxation  why  should  States 
agree  to  an  alteration  proposed  with  the  very  object  of  in- 
creasing their  proportion  of  the  national  burden  ?  But 
unless  such  States  will  agree — unless  Rhode  Island,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  New  York  will  consent  to  put  their  own  necks 
into  the  yoke — direct  taxation  cannot  be  levied  on  them  in 
a  manner  available  for  national  purposes.  I  do  believe 
that  Bhode  Island  and  Massachusetts  at  present  possess  a 
patriotism  sufficient  for  such  an  act.  But  the  mode  of  doing 
the  work  will  create  disagreement,  or  at  any  rate,  tedious 
delay  and  difficulty.  How  shall  the  Constitution  be  con- 
stitutionally amended  while  one-third  of  the  States  are  in 
revolt  ? 

In  the  eighth  section  of  its  first  article  the  Constitution 
gives  a  list  of  the  duties  which  Congress  shall  perform — of 
things,  in  short,  which  it  shall  do  or  shall  have  power  to 
do  :  To  raise  taxes ;  to  regulate  commerce  and  the  natu- 
ralization of  citizens ;  to  coin  money,  and  protect  it  when 


200 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


coined ;  to  establish  postal  communication  ;  to  make  laws 
for  defense  of  patents  and  copyrights  ;  to  constitute  na- 
tional courts  of  law  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court ;  to 
punish  piracies  ;  to  declare  war ;  to  raise,  pay  for,  and  gov- 
ern armies,  navies,  and  militia ;  and  to  exercise  exclusive 
legislation  in  a  certain  district  which  shall  contain  the  seat 
of  government  of  the  United  States,  and  which  is  therefore 
to  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  nation  at  large,  and  not 
to  any  particular  State.  This  district  is  now  called  the 
District  of  Columbia.  It  is  situated  on  the  Potomac,  and 
contains  the  City  of  Washington. 

Then  the  ninth  section  of  the  same  article  declares  what 
Congress  shall  not  do.  Certain  immigration  shall  not  be 
prohibited;  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
shall  not  be  suspended,  exce\:>t  under  certain  circumstances; 
no  ex  post  facto  law  shall  be  passed  ;  no  direct  tax  shall 
be  laid  unless  in  proportion  to  the  census  ;  no  tax  shall  be 
laid  on  exports ;  no  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  treas- 
ury but  by  legal  appropriation  ;  no  title  of  nobility  shall 
be  granted. 

The  above  are  lists  or  catalogues  of  the  powers  which 
Congress  has,  and  of  the  powers  which  Congress  has  not — 
of  what  Congress  may  do,  and  of  what  Congress  may  not 
do  ;  and  having  given  them  thus  seriatim,  I  may  here  per- 
haps be  best  enabled  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the  suspen- 
sion of  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  the 
United  States.  It  is  generally  known  that  this  privilege 
has  been  suspended  during  the  existence  ot  the  present  re- 
bellion very  many  times ;  that  this  has  been  done  by  the 
Executive,  and  not  by  Congress  ;  and  that  it  is  maintained 
by  the  Executive  and  by  those  who  defend  the  conduct  of 
the  now  acting  Executive  of  the  United  States  that  the 
power  of  suspending  the  writ  has  been  given  by  the  Con- 
stitution to  the  President  and  not  to  Congress.  I  confess 
that  I  cannot  understand  how  any  man  familiar  either  with 
the  wording  or  with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  should 
hold  such  ar  argument.  To  me  it  appears  manifest  that 
the  Executive,  in  suspending  the  privilege  of  the  writ  with- 
out the  authority  of  Congress,  has  committed  a  breach  of 
t  he  Constiti  tion.  Were  the  case  one  referring  to  our  British 
Constitution,  a  plain  man,  knowing  little  of  parliamentary 
usage  and  nothing  of  law  lore,  would  probably  feel  some  hes- 
itation in  expressing  any  decided  opinion  on  such  a  subject, 


HABEAS  CORPUS.' 


201 


seeing  that  our  constitution  is  unwritten.  But  the  intention 
has  been  that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  should  know 
a,nd  understand  the  rules  under  which  he  is  to  live,  and  that 
he  that  runs  may  read. 

As  this  matter  has  been  argued  by  Mr.  Horace  Binney, 
a  lawyer  of  Philadelphia— much  trusted,  of  very  great  and 
of  deserved  eminence  throughout  the  States — in  a  pamphlet 
in  which  he  defends  the  suspension  of  the  privilege  of  the 
writ  by  the  President,  I  will  take  the  position  of  the  ques- 
tion as  summed  up  by  him  in  his  last  page,  and  compare  it 
with  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  by  which  the  suspension 
of  the  privilege  under  certain  circumstances  is  decreed  ;  and 
to  enable  me  to  do  this  I  will,  in  the  first  place,  quote  the 
words  of  the  clause  in  question  : — 

"  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be 
suspended  unless  when,  in  case  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the 
public  safety  may  require  it."  It  is  the  second  clause  of 
that  section  which  states  what  Congress  shall  not  do. 

Mr.  Binney  argues  as  follows  :  "  The  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  is  this — that  the  Constitution  itself  is  the  law 
of  the  privilege  and  of  the  exception  to  it ;  that  the  excep- 
tion is  expressed  in  the  Constitution,  and  that  the  Constitu- 
tion gives  effect  to  the  act  of  suspension  when  the  conditions 
occur ;  that  the  conditions  consist  of  two  matters  of  fact — 
one  a  naked  matter  of  fact ;  and  the  other  a  matter-of-fact 
conclusion  from  facts  :  that  is  to  say,  rebellion  and  the 
public  danger,  or  the  requirement  of  public  safety."  By 
these  words  Mr.  Binney  intends  to  imply  that  the  Constitu- 
tion itself  gave  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
and  itself  prescribes  the  taking  away  of  that  privilege  under 
certain  circumstances.  But  this  is  not  so.  The  Constitu- 
tion does  not  prescribe  the  suspension  of  the  privilege  of 
the  writ  under  any  circumstances.  It  says  that  it  shall  not 
be  suspended  except  under  certain  circumstances.  Mr. 
Binney's  argument,  if  I  understand  it,  then  goes  on  as  fol- 
lows :  As  the  Constitution  prescribes  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  privilege  of  the  writ  shall  be  suspended — • 
the  one  circumstance  being  the  naked  matter  of  fact  rebel- 
lion, and  the  other  circumstance  the  public  safety  supposed 
to  have  been  endangered  by  such  rebellion,  which  Mr.  Bin- 
ney calls  a  matter-of-fact  conclusion  from  facts — the  Con- 
stitution must  be  presumed  itself  to  suspend  the  privilege 
of  the  writ.    Whether  the  President  or  Congress  be  the 


202 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


agent  of  tlie  Constitution  in  this  suspension,  is  not  matter 
of  moment.  Either  can  only  be  an  agent ;  and  as  Congress 
cannot  act  executively,  whereas  the  President  must  ulti- 
mately be  charged  with  the  executive  administration  of  the 
order  for  that  suspension,  which  has  in  fact  been  issued  by 
the  Constitution  itself,  therefore  the  power  of  exercising 
the  suspension  of  the  writ  may  properly  be  presumed  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  the  President  and  not  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
Congress. 

If  I  follow  Mr.  Binney's  argument,  it  amounts  to  so 
much.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Binney  is  wrong  in  his 
premises  and  wrong  in  his  conclusion.  The  article  of  the 
Constitution  in  question  does  not  define  the  conditions  un- 
der which  the  privilege  of  the  writ  shall  be  suspended.  It 
simply  states  that  this  privilege  shall  never  be  suspended 
except  under  certain  conditions.  It  shall  not  be  suspended 
unless  when  the  public  safety  may  require  such  suspension 
on  account  of  rebellion  or  invasion.  Rebellion  or  invasion 
is  not  necessarily  to  produce  such  suspension.  There  is, 
indeed,  no  naked  matter  of  fact  to  guide  either  President  or 
Congress  in  the  matter ;  and  therefore  I  say  that  Mr.  Bin- 
ney is  wrong  in  his  premises.  Rebellion  or  invasion  might 
occur  twenty  times  over,  and  might  even  endanger  the  pub- 
lic safety,  without  justifying  the  suspension  of  the  privilege 
of  the  writ  under  the  Constitution.  I  say  also  that  Mr. 
Binney  is  wrong  in  his  conclusion.  The  public  safety  must 
require  the  suspension  before  the  suspension  can  be  justi- 
fied ;  and  such  requirement  must  be  a  matter  for  judgment 
and  for  the  exercise  of  discretion.  Whether  or  no  there 
shall  be  any  suspension  is  a  matter  for  deliberation — not 
one  simply  for  executive  action,  as  though  it  were  already 
ordered.  There  is  no  matter-of-fact  conclusion  from  facts. 
Should  invasion  or  rebellion  occur,  and  should  the  public 
safety,  in  consequence  of  such  rebellion  or  invasion,  require 
the  suspension  of  the  privilege  of  the  writ,  then,  and  only 
then,  may  the  privilege  be  suspended.  But  to  whom  is  the 
power,  or  rather  the  duty,  of  exercising  this  discretion  del- 
egated ?  Mr.  Binney  says  that  "  there  is  no  express  dele- 
gation of  the  power  in  the  Constitution."  I  maintain  that 
Mr.  Binney  is  again  wrong,  and  that  the  Constitution  does 
expressly  delegate  the  power,  not  to  the  President,  but  to 
Congress.  This  is  done  so  clearly,  to  my  mind,  that  I  can- 
not understand  the  misunderstanding  which  has  existed  in 


HABEAS  CORPUS. 


203 


the  States  upon  the  subject.  The  first  article  of  the  Con- 
stitution treats  "of  the  legislature."  The  second  article 
treats  "of  the  executive."  The  third  treats  "of  the  judi- 
ciary." After  that  there  are  certain  "miscellaneous  arti- 
cles" so  called.  The  eighth  section  of  the  first  article  gives, 
as  I  have  said  before,  a  list  of  things  which  the  legislature  or 
Congress  shall  do.  The  ninth  section  gives  a  list  of  things 
which  the  legislature  or  Congress  shall  not  do.  The  second 
item  in  this  list  is  the  prohibition  of  any  suspension  of  the 
privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  except  under  cer- 
tain circumstances.  This  prohibition  is  therefore  expressly 
placed  upon  Congress,  and  this  prohibition  contains  the  only 
authority  under  which  the  privilege  can  be  constitutionally 
suspended.  Then  comes  the  article  on  the  executive,  which 
defines  the  powers  that  the  President  shall  exercise.  In 
that  article  there  is  no  word  referring  to  the  suspension  of 
the  privilege  of  the  writ.    He  that  runs  may  read. 

I  say,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  government  has  com- 
mitted a  breach  of  the  Constitution  in  taking  upon  itself  to 
suspend  the  privilege;  a  breach  against  the  letter  of  the 
Constitution.  It  has  assumed  a  power  w^hich  the  Constitu- 
tion has  not  given  it — which,  indeed,  the  Constitution,  by 
l^lacing  it  in  the  hands  of  another  body,  has  manifestly  de- 
clined to  put  into  the  hands  of  the  Executive;  and  it  has 
also  committed  a  breach  against  the  spirit  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  chief  purport  of  the  Constitution  is  to  guard 
the  liberties  of  the  people,  and  to  confide  to  a  deliberative 
body  the  consideration  of  all  circumstances  by  which  those 
liberties  may  be  affected.  The  President  shall  command 
the  army;  but  Congress  shall  raise  and  support  the  army. 
Congress  shall  declare  war.  Congress  shall  coin  money. 
Congress,  by  one  of  its  bodies,  shall  sanction  treaties. 
Congress  shall  establish  such  law  courts  as  are  not  estab- 
lished by  the  Constitution.  Under  no  circumstances  is  the 
President  to  decree  what  shall  be  done.  But  he  is  to  do 
those  things  which  the  Constitution  has  decreed  or  which 
Congress  shall  decree.  It  is  monstrous  to  suppose  that 
power  over  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
■would,  among  such  a  people,  and  under  such  a  Constitu- 
tion, be  given  without  limit  to  the  chief  officer,  the  only 
condition  being  that  there  should  be  some  rebellion.  Such 
rebellion  might  be  in  Utah  Territory;  or  some  trouble  in 
the  uttermost  bounds  of  Texas  would  suffice.  Any  invasion, 


204 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


such  as  an  inroad  by  the  savages  of  Old  Mexico  upon  New 
Mexico,  would  justify  an  arbitrary  President  in  robbing 
all  the  people  of  all  the  States  of  their  liberties  I  A 
squabble  on  the  borders  of  Canada  would  put  such  a 
power  into  the  hands  of  the  President  for  four  years ; 
or  the  presence  of  an  English  frigate  in  the  St.  Juan 
channel  might  be  held  to  do  so.  I  say  that  such  a  theory 
is  monstrous. 

And  the  effect  of  this  breach  of  the  Constitution  at  the 
present  day  has  been  very  disastrous.  It  has  taught  those 
who  have  not  been  close  observers  of  the  American  struggle 
to  believe  that,  after  all,  the  Americans  are  indifferent  as  to 
their  liberties.  Such  pranks  have  been  played  before  high 
heaven  by  men  utterly  unfitted  for  the  use  of  great  power, 
as  have  scared  all  the  nations.  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  President 
by  whom  this  unconstitutional  act  has  been  done,  apparently 
delegated  his  assumed  authority  to  his  minister,  Mr.  Seward. 
Mr.  Seward  has  reveled  in  the  privilege  of  unrestrained 
arrests,  and  has  locked  men  up  with  reason  and  without. 
He  has  instituted  passports  and  surveillance;  and  placed 
himself  at  the  head  of  an  omnipresent  police  system  with 
all  the  gusto  of  a  Fouche,  though  luckily  without  a  Fouche's 
craft  or  cunning.  The  time  will  probably  come  when  Mr. 
Seward  must  pay  for  this — not  with  his  life  or  liberty,  but 
with  his  reputation  and  political  name.  But  in  the  mean 
time  his  lettres  de  cachet  have  run  everywhere  through  the 
States.  The  pranks  which  he  played  were  absurd,  and  the 
arrests  which  he  made  were  grievous.  After  awhile,  when 
it  became  manifest  that  Mr.  Seward  had  not  found  a  way  to 
success,  when  it  was  seen  that  he  had  inaugurated  no  great 
mode  of  putting  down  rebellion,  he  apparently  lost  his 
power  in  the  cabinet.  The  arrests  ceased,  the  passports 
were  discontinued,  and  the  prison  doors  were  gradually 
opened.  Mr.  Seward  was  deposed,  not  from  the  cabinet, 
but  from  the  premiership  of  the  cabinet.  The  suspension 
of  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  not 
countermanded,  but  the  operation  of  the  suspension  was 
allowed  to  become  less  and  less  onerous;  and  now,  in 
April,  1862,  within  a  year  of  the  commencement  of  the 
suspension,  it  has,  I  think,  nearly  died  out.  The  object  in 
hand  now  is  rather  that  of  getting  rid  of  political  prisoners 
than  of  taking  others. 

This  assumption  by  the  government  of  an  unconstitu- 


THE  EXECUTIVE. 


205 


tional  power  has,  as  I  have  said,  taught  many  lookers  on 
to  think  that  the  Americans  are  indifferent  to  their  liberties. 
I  myself  do  not  believe  that  such  a  conclusion  would  be 
just.  During  the  present  crisis  the  strong  feeling  of  the 
people — that  feeling  which  for  the  moment  has  been  domi- 
nant— has  been  one  in  favor  of  the  government  as  against 
rebellion.  There  has  been  a  passionate  resolution  to  sup- 
port the  nationality  of  the  nation.  Men  have  felt  that  they 
must  make  individual  sacrifices,  and  that  such  sacrifices 
must  include  a  temporary  suspension  of  some  of  their  con- 
stitutional rights.  But  I  think  that  this  temporary  sus- 
pension is  already  regarded  with  jealous  eyes;  with  an 
increasing  jealousy  which  will  have  created  a  reaction 
against  such  policy  as  that  which  Mr.  Seward  has  at- 
temped,  long  before  the  close  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Presidency. 
I  know  that  it  is  wrong  in  a  writer  to  commit  himself  to 
prophecies,  but  I  find  it  impossible  to  write  upon  this  sub- 
ject without  doing  so.  As  I  must  express  a  surmise  on 
this  subject,  I  venture  to  prophesy  that  the  Americans  of 
the  States  will  soon  show  that  they  are  not  indifferent  to 
the  suspension  of  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus.  On  that  matter  of  the  illegality  of  the  suspen- 
sion by  the  President,  I  feel  in  my  own  mind  that  there  is 
no  doubt. 

The  second  article  of  the  Constitution  treats  of  the  ex- 
ecutive, and  is  very  short.  It  places  the  whole  executive 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  President,  and  explains  with 
more  detail  the  mode  in  which  the  President  shall  be 
chosen  than  the  manner  after  which  the  duties  shall  be 
performed.  The  first  section  states  that  the  executive  shall 
be  vested  in  a  President,  who  shall  hold  his  office  for  four 
years.  With  him  shall  be  chosen  a  Vice-President.  I 
may  here  explain  that  the  Vice-President,  as  such,  has  no 
power  either  political  or  administrative.  He  is,  ex-officio, 
the  Speaker  of  the  Senate;  and  should  the  President  die, 
or  be  by  other  cause  rendered  unable  to  act  as  President, 
the  Vice-President  becomes  President  either  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  presidential  term  or  for  the  period  of  the 
President's  temporary  absence.  Twice,  since  the  Constitu- 
tion was  written,  the  President  has  died  and  the  Vice- 
President  has  taken  his  place.  No  President  has  vacated 
his  position,  even  for  a  period,  through  any  cause  other 
than  death. 

VOL.  II. — 18 


20G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Then  come  the  rules  under  which  the  President  and 
Vice-President  shall  be  elected — with  reference  to  which 
there  has  been  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution  subse- 
quent to  the  fourth  Presidential  election.  This  was  found 
to  be  necessary  by  the  circumstances  of  the  contest  be- 
tween John  Adams,  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  Aaron  Burr. 
It  was  then  found  that  the  complications  in  the  method  of 
election  created  by  the  original  clause  were  all  but  unen- 
durable, and  the  Constitution  was  amended. 

I  will  not  describe  in  detail  the  present  mode  of  election, 
as  the  doing  so  would  be  tedious  and  unnecessary.  Two 
facts  I  wish,  however,  to  make  specially  noticeable  and 
clear.  The  first  is,  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
is  now  chosen  by  universal  suffrage ;  and  the  second  is,  that 
the  Constitution  expressly  intended  that  the  President 
should  not  be  chosen  by  universal  suffrage,  but  by  a  body 
of  men  who  should  enjoy  the  confidence  and  fairly  repre- 
sent the  will  of  the  people.  The  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion intended  so  to  write  the  words  that  the  people  them- 
selves should  have  no  more  immediate  concern  in  the 
nomination  of  the  President  than  in  that  of  the  Senate. 
They  intended  to  provide  that  the  election  should  be  made 
in  a  manner  which  may  be  described  as  thoroughly  con- 
servative. Those  words,  however,  have  been  inefficient  for 
their  purpose.  They  have  not  been  violated.  But  the 
spirit  has  been  violated,  while  the  words  have  been  held 
sacred;  and  the  presidential  elections  are  now  conducted 
on  the  widest  principles  of  universal  suffrage.  They  are 
essentially  democratic. 

The  arrangement,  as  written  in  the  Constitution,  is  that 
each  State  shall  appoint  a  body  of  electors  equal  in  num- 
ber to  the  Senators  and  Representatives  sent  by  that  State 
to  Congress,  and  that  thus  a  body  or  college  of  electors 
shall  be  formed  equal  in  number  to  the  two  joint  Houses 
of  Congress,  by  which  the  President  shall  be  elected.  No 
member  of  Congress,  however,  can  be  appointed  an  elector. 
Thus  New  York,  with  thirty-three  Representatives  in  the 
Lower  House,  would  name  thirty-five  electors;  and  Rhode 
Island,  with  two  members  in  the  Lower  House,  would  name 
four  electors — in  each  case  two  being  added  for  the  two 
Senators. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  doubted  whether  this  theory  of  an 
election  by  electors  has  ever  been  truly  carried  out.  It 


PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTORS. 


was  probably  the  case  even  at  the  election  of  the  first 
Presidents  after  Washing-ton,  that  the  electors  were  pledged 
in  some  informal  way  as  to  the  candidate  for  whom  they 
should  vote;  but  the  very  idea  of  an  election  by  electors 
has  been  abandoned  since  the  Presidency  of  General  Jack- 
son. According  to  the  theory  of  the  Constitution,  the 
privilege  and  the  duty  of  selecting  a  best  man  as  President 
was  to  be  delegated  to  certain  best  men  chosen  for  that 
purpose.  This  was  the  intention  of  those  who  framed  the 
Constitution.  It  may,  as  1  have  said,  be  doubted  whether 
this  theory  has  ever  availed  for  action ;  but  since  the  days 
of  Jackson  it  has  been  absolutely  abandoned.  The  inten- 
tion was  sufficiently  conservative.  The  electors  to  whom 
was  to  be  confided  this  great  trust,  were  to  be  chosen  in 
their  own  States  as  each  State  might  think  fit.  The  use 
of  universal  suffrage  for  this  purpose  was  neither  enjoined 
nor  forbidden  in  the  separate  States — was  neither  treated 
as  desirable  or  undesirable  by  the  Constitution.  Each 
State  was  left  to  judge  how  it  would  elect  its  own  electors. 
But  the  President  himself  was  to  be  chosen  by  those  elec- 
tors and  not  by  the  people  at  large.  The  intention  is 
sufficiently  conservative,  but  the  intention  is  not  carried 
out. 

The  electors  are  still  chosen  by  the  diff'erent  States  in 
conformity  with  the  bidding  of  the  Constitution.  The 
Constitution  is  exactly  followed  in  all  its  biddings,  as  far 
as  the  wording  of  it  is  concerned ;  but  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  document  has  been  evaded  in  the  favor  of  democracy, 
and  universal  suffrage  in  the  presidential  elections  has 
been  adopted.  The  electors  are  still  chosen,  it  is  true  ; 
but  they  are  only  chosen  as  the  mouth-piece  of  the  people's 
choice,  and  not  as  the  mind  by  which  that  choice  shall  be 
made.  We  have  all  heard  of  Americans  voting  for  a  ticket 
— for  the  Democratic  ticket,  or  the  Republican  ticket.  All 
political  voting  in  the  States  is  now  managed  by  tickets. 
As  regards  these  presidential  elections,  each  party  decides 
on  a  candidate.  Even  this  primary  decision  is  a  matter  of 
voting  among  the  party  itself  When  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
nominated  as  its  candidate  by  the  Republican  party,  the 
names  of  no  less  than  thirteen  candidates  were  submitted 
to  the  delegates  who  were  sent  to  a  convention  at  Chicago, 
assembled  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  upon  a  candidate.  At 
that  convention  Mr.  Lincoln  was  chosen  as  the  Republican 


208 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


candidate ;  and  in  that  convention  was  in  fact  fought  the 
battle  which  was  won  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  favor,  although  that 
convention  was  what  we  may  call  a  private  arrangement, 
wholly  irrespective  of  any  constitutional  enactment.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  then  proclaimed  as  the  Republican  candidate, 
and  all  Republicans  were  held  as  bound  to  support  him. 
When  the  time  came  for  the  constitutional  election  of  the 
electors,  certain  names  were  got  together  in  each  State  as 
representing  the  Republican  interest.  These  names  formed 
the  Republican  ticket,  and  any  man  voting  for  them  voted 
in  fact  for  Lincoln.  There  were  three  other  parties,  each 
represented  by  a  candidate,  and  each  had  its  own  ticket  in 
the  different  States.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  sup- 
porters of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  very  anxious  about  their  ticket 
in  Alabama,  or  those  of  Mr.  Breckinridge  as  to  theirs  in 
Massachusetts.  In  Alabama,  a  Democratic  slave  ticket 
would,  of  course,  prevail.  In  Massachusetts,  a  Republican 
free-soil  ticket  would  do  so.  But  it  may,  I  think,  be  seen 
that  in  this  way  the  electors  have  in  reality  ceased  to  have 
any  weight  in  the  elections — have  in  very  truth  ceased  to 
have  the  exercise  of  any  will  whatever.  They  are  mere 
names,  and  no  more.  Stat  nominis  umbra.  The  election 
of  the  President  is  made  by  universal  suffrage,  and  not  by 
a  college  of  electors.  The  words  as  they  are  written  are 
still  obeyed ;  but  the  Constitution  in  fact  has  been  violated, 
for  the  spirit  of  it  has  been  changed  in  its  very  essence- 

The  President  must  have  been  born  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  This  is  not  necessary  for  the  holder  of  any 
other  office  or  for  a  Senator  or  Representative ;  he  must 
be  thirty-four  years  old  at  the  time  of  his  election. 

His  executive  power  is  almost  unbounded.  He  is  much 
more  powerful  than  any  minister  can  be  with  us,  and  is  sub- 
ject to  a  much  lighter  responsibility.  He  may  be  impeached 
by  the  House  of  Representatives  before  the  Senate,  but  that 
impeachment  only  goes  to  the  removal  from  office  and  per- 
manent disqualification  for  office.  But  in  these  days,  as  we 
all  practically  understand,  responsibility  does  not  mean  the 
fear  of  any  great  punishment,  but  the  necessity  of  account- 
ing from  day  to  day  for  public  actions.  A  leading  states- 
man has  but  slight  dread  of  the  axe,  but  is  in  hourly  fear  of 
his  opponent's  questions.  The  President  of  the  United 
States  is  subject  to  no  such  questionings,  and  as  he  does 
not  even  require  a  majority  in  either  House  for  the  main- 


POWER  OP  THE  PRESIDENT. 


200 


tenance  of  his  authority,  his  responsibility  sets  npon  him 
very  slightly.  Seeing  that  Mr,  Buchanan  has  escaped  any 
punishment  for  maladministration,  no  President  need  fear 
the  anger  of  the  people. 

The  President  is  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
of  the  navy.  He  can  grant  pardons — as  regards  all  offenses 
committed  against  the  United  Slates.  He  has  no  power 
to  pardon  an  offense  committed  against  the  laws  of  any 
State,  and  as  to  which  the  culprit  has  been  tried  before  the 
tribunals  of  that  State.  He  can  make  treaties;  bnt  such 
treaties  are  not  valid  till  they  have  been  confirmed  by  two- 
thirds  of  the  Senators  present  in  executive  session.  He 
appoints  all  ambassadors  and  other  public  officers — but  sub- 
ject to  the  confirmation  of  the  Senate.  He  can  convene 
either  or  both  Houses  of  Congress  at  irregular  times,  and 
under  certain  circumstances  can  adjourn  them.  His  execu- 
tive power  is,  in  fact,  almost  unlimited;  and  this  power  is 
solely  in  his  own  hands,  as  the  Constitution  knows  nothing 
of  the  President's  ministers.  According  to  the  Constitu- 
tion these  officers  are  merely  the  heads  of  his  bureaus.  An 
Englishman,  however,  in  considering  the  executive  power 
of  the  President,  and  in  making  any  comparison  between 
that  and  the  executive  power  of  any  officer  or  officers  at- 
tached to  the  Crown  in  England,  should  always  bear  in 
mind  that  the  President's  power,  and  even  authority,  is  con- 
fined to  the  Federal  government,  and  that  he  has  none  with 
reference  to  the  individual  States.  Religion,  education, 
the  administration  of  the  general  laws  which  concern  every 
man  and  woman,  and  the  real  de  facto  government  which 
comes  home  to  every  house, — these  things  are  not  in  any 
way  subject  to  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

His  legislative  power  is  also  great.  He  has  a  veto  upon 
all  acts  of  Congress.  This  veto  is  by  no  means  a  dead  letter, 
as  is  the  veto  of  the  Crown  with  us ;  but  it  is  not  absolute. 
The  President,  if  he  refuses  his  sanction  to  a  bill  sent  up  to 
him  from  Congress,  returns  it  to  that  House  in  which  it 
originated,  with  his  objections  in  writing.  If,  after  that, 
such  bill  shall  again  pass  through  both  the  Senate  and  the 
House  of  Representatives,  receiving  in  each  House  the  ap- 
provals of  two-thirds  of  those  present,  then  such  bill  becomes 
law  without  the  President's  sanction.  Unless  this  be  done, 
the  President's  veto  stops  the  bill.  This  veto  has  been  fre- 
quently used,  but  no  bill  has  yet  been  passed  in  opposition  to  it. 
VOL.  II.— 18* 


210 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


The  third  article  of  the  Constitution  treats  of  the  judi- 
ciary of  the  United  States;  but  as  I  purpose  to  write  a 
chapter  devoted  to  the  law  courts  and  lawyers  of  the  States, 
I  need  not  here  describe  at  length  the  enactments  of  the 
Constitution  on  this  head.  It  is  ordained  that  all  criminal 
trials,  except  in  cases  of  impeachment,  shall  be  by  jury. 

There  are  after  this  certain  miscellaneous  articles,  some 
of  which  belong  to  the  Constitution  as  it  stood  at  first,  and 
others  of  which  have  been  since  added  as  amendments.  A 
citizen  of  one  State  is  to  be  a  citizen  of  every  State.  Crim- 
inals from  one  State  shall  not  be  free  from  pursuit  in  other 
States.  Then  comes  a  very  material  enactment:  "No 
person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  State,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any 
law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service 
or  labor;  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  sucli  service  or  labor  may  be  due."  In  speaking  of 
a  person  held  to  labor  the  Constitution  intends  to  speak  of 
a  slave,  and  the  article  amounts  to  a  fugitive  slave  law.  If 
a  slave  run  away  out  of  South  Carolina  and  find  his  way 
into  Massachusetts,  Massachusetts  shall  deliver  him  up  when 
called  upon  to  do  so  by  South  Carolina.  The  words  certainly 
are  clear  enough.  But  Massachusetts  strongly  objects  to 
the  delivery  of  such  men  when  so  desired.  Such  men  she 
has  delivered  up,  with  many  groanings  and  much  inward 
perturbation  of  spirit.  But  it  is  understood,  not  in  Massa- 
chusetts only,  but  in  the  free-soil  States  generally,  that  fugi- 
tive slaves  shall  not  be  delivered  up  by  the  ordinary  action 
of  tlie  laws.  There  is  a  feeling  strong  as  that  which  we  en- 
tertain with  reference  to  the  rendition  of  slaves  from  Canada. 
With  such  a  clause  in  the  Constitution  as  that,  it  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  no  free-soil  State  will  consent  to  con- 
stitutional action.  Were  it  expunged  from  the  Constitution, 
no  slave  State  would  consent  to  live  under  it.  It  is  a  point 
as  to  which  the  advocates  of  slavery  and  the  enemies  of 
slavery  cannot  be  brought  to  act  in  union.  But  on  this  head 
I  have  already  said  what  little  I  have  to  say. 

New  Spates  may  be  admitted  by  Congress,  but  the  bounds 
of  no  old  State  shall  be  altered  without  the  consent  of  such 
State.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  rule  and  dispose  of  the 
Territories  and  property  of  the  United  States.  The  United 
States  guarantee  every  State  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment; but  the  Constitution  does  not  define  that  forui  of 


AMENDMENTS  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION. 


211 


government.  An  ordinary  citizen  of  the  United  States,  if 
asked,  would  probably  say  that  it  included  that  description 
of  franchise  which  I  have  called  universal  suffrage.  Such, 
however,  was  not  the  meaning  of  those  who  framed  the 
Constitution.  The  ordinary  citizen  would  probably  also  say 
that  it  excluded  the  use  of  a  king,  though  he  would,  I 
imagine,  be  able  to  give  no  good  reason  for  saying  so.  I 
take  a  republican  government  to  be  that  in  which  the  care 
of  the  people  is  in  the  hands  of  the  pef)ple.  They  may  use 
an  elected  president,  a  hereditary  king,  or  a  chief  magis- 
trate called  by  any  other  name.  But  the  magistrate,  what- 
ever be  his  name,  must  be  the  servant  of  the  people  and  not 
their  lord.  He  must  act  for  them  and  at  their  bidding — not 
they  at  his.  If  he  do  so,  he  is  the  chief  "officer  of  a  republic — • 
as  is  our  Queen  with  us. 

The  United  States  Constitution  also  guarantees  to  each 
State  protection  against  invasion,  and,  if  necessary,  against 
domestic  violence — meaning,  I  presume,  internal  violence. 
The  words  domestic  violence  might  seem  to  refer  solely  to 
slave  insurrections;  but  such  is  not  the  meaning  of  the 
words.  The  free  State  of  New  York  would  be  entitled  to 
the  assistance  of  the  Federal  government  in  putting  down 
internal  violence,  if  unable  to  quell  such  violence  by  her  own 
power. 

This  Constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
made  in  pursuance  of  it,  are  to  be  held  as  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land.  The  judges  of  every  State  are  to  be  bound 
thereby,  let  the  laws  or  separate  constitution  of  such  State 
say  what  they  will  to  the  contrary.  Senators  and  others  are 
to  be  bound  by  oath  to  support  the  Constitution ;  but  no 
religious  test  shall  be  required  as  a  qualification  to  any 
office. 

In  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  it  is  enacted  that 
Congress  shall  make  no  law  as  to  the  establishment  of  any 
religion,  or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof;  and  also 
that  it  shall  not  abridge  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of  the 
press,  or  of  petition.  The  government,  however,  as  is  well 
known,  has  taken  upon  itself  to  abridge  the  freedom  of  the 
press.  The  right  of  the  people  to  bear  arms  shall  not  be 
infringed.  Then  follow  various  clauses  intended  for  the 
security  of  the  people  in  reference  to  the  administration  of 
the  laws.  They  shall  not  be  troubled  by  unreasonable 
searches.     They  shall  not  be  made  to  answer  for  great 


212 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


offenses  except  by  indictment  of  a  grand  jury.  They  shall 
not  be  put  twice  in  jeopardy  for  the  same  offense.  They 
shall  not  be  compelled  to  give  evidence  against  themselves. 
Private  property  shall  not  be  taken  for  public  use  without 
compensation.  Accused  persons  in  criminal  proceedings 
shall  be  entitled  to  speedy  and  public  trial.  They  shall  be 
confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  them,  and  shall  have 
assistance  of  counsel.  Suits  in  which  the  value  controverted 
is  above  twenty  doJlars  (4Z.)  shall  be  tried  before  juries. 
Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required,  nor  cruel  and  unusual 
punishments  inflicted.  In  all  which  enactments  we  see,  I 
think,  a  close  resemblance  to  those  which  have  been  time 
honored  among  ourselves. 

The  remaining  amendments  apply  to  the  mode  in  which 
the  President  and  Vice-President  shall  be  elected,  and  of 
them  I  have  already  spoken. 

The  Constitution  is  signed  by  Washington  as  President — 
as  President  and  Deputy  from  Virginia.  It  is  signed  by 
deputies  from  all  the  other  States,  except  Rhode  Island. 
Among  the  signatures  is  that  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  from 
New  York ;  of  Franklin,  heading  a  crowd  in  Pennsylvania, 
in  the  capital  of  which  State  the  convention  was  held;  and 
that  of  James  Madison,  the  future  President,  from  Virginia. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  I  have  spoken  of  the 
splendid  results  attained  by  those  who  drew  up  the  Consti- 
tution; and  then,  as  though  in  opposition  to  the  praise 
thus  given  to  their  work,  I  have  insisted  throughout  the 
chapter  both  on  the  insufficiency  of  the  Constitution  and 
on  the  breaches  to  which  it  has  been  subjected.  I  have  de- 
clared my  opinion  that  it  is  inefficient  for  some  of  its  re- 
quired purposes,  and  have  said  that,  whether  inefficient  or 
efficient,  it  has  been  broken  and  in  some  degree  abandoned. 
I  maintain,  however,  that  in  this  I  have  not  contradicted 
myself.  A  boy,  who  declares  his  purpose  of  learning  the 
J^neid  by  heart,  will  be  held  as  being  successful  if  at  the 
end  of  the  given  period  he  can  repeat  eleven  books  out  of 
the  twelve.  Nevertheless  the  reporter,  in  summing  up  the 
achievement,  is  bound  to  declare  that  that  other  book  has 
not  been  learned.  Under  this  Constitution  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking,  tlie  American  people  have  achieved  much 
material  success  and  great  political  power.  Asa  people 
they  have  been  happy  and  prosperous.  Their  freedom  has 
been  secured  to  them,  and  for  a  period  of  seventy-hve  years 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES.  213 

thej  have  lived  and  prospered  without  subjection  to  any 
form  of  tyranny.  This  in  itself  is  much,  and  should,  I 
think,  be  held  as  a  preparation  for  greater  things  to  follow. 
Such,  I  think,  should  be  our  opinion,  although  the  nation 
is  at  the  present  burdened  by  so  heavy  a  load  of  troubles. 
Tliat  any  written  constitution  should  serve  its  purposes  and 
maintain  its  authority  in  a  nation  for  a  dozen  years  is  in 
itself  much  for  its  framers.  Where  are  nQ.w  the  constitu- 
tions which  were  written  for  France?  But  this  Constitu- 
tion has  so  wound  itself  into  the  affections  of  the  people, 
has  become  a  mark  for  such  reverence  and  love,  has,  after  a 
trial  of  three-quarters  of  a  century,  so  recommended  itself 
to  the  judgment  of  men,  that  the  difficulty  consists  in 
touching  it,  not  in  keeping  it.  Eighteen  or  twenty  mil- 
lions of  people  who  have  lived  under  it, — in  what  way  do 
they  regard  it  ?  Is  not  that  the  best  evidence  that  can  be 
had  respecting  it?  Is  it  to  them  an  old  woman's  story,  a 
useless  parchment,  a  thing  of  old  words  at  which  all  must 
now  smile  ?  Heaven  mend  them,  if  they  reverence  it  more, 
as  I  fear  they  do,  than  they  reverence  their  Bible.  For 
them,  after  seventy-five  years  of  trial,  it  has  almost  the 
weight  of  inspiration.  In  this  respect,  with  reference  to 
this  worship  of  the  work  of  their  forefathers,  they  may  be 
in  error.  I5ut  that  very  error  goes  far  to  prove  the  excel- 
lence of  the  code.  When  a  man  has  walked  for  six  months 
over  stony  ways  in  the  same  boots,  he  will  be  believed  when 
he  says  that  his  boots  are  good  boots.  No  assertion  to  the 
contrary  from  any  by-stander  will  receive  credence,  even 
though  it  be  shown  that  a  stitch  or  two  has  come  undone, 
and  that  some  required  purpose  has  not  effectually  been 
carried  out.  The  boots  have  carried  the  man  over  his 
stony  roads  for  six  months,  and  they  must  be  good  boots. 
And  so  I  say  that  the  Constitution  must  be  a  good  consti- 
tution. 

As  to  that  positive  breach  of  the  Constitution  which  has, 
as  I  maintain,  been  committed  by  the  present  government, 
although  I  have  been  at  some  trouble  to  prove  it,  I  must 
own  that  I  do  not  think  very  much  of  it.  It  is  to  be 
lamented;  but  the  evil  admits,  I  think,  of  easy  repair.  It 
has  happened  at  a  period  of  unwonted  difficulty,  when  the 
minds  of  men  were  intent  rather  on  the  support  of  that 
nationality  which  guarantees  their  liberties,  than  on  the 
enjoyment  of  those  liberties  themselves,  and  the  fault  may 


214 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


be  pardoned  if  it  be  acknowledged.  But  it  is  essential 
that  it  should  be  acknowledged.  In  such  a  matter  as  that 
there  should  at  any  rate  be  no  doubt.  Now,  in  this  very 
year  of  the  rebellion,  it  may  be  well  that  no  clamor  against 
government  should  arise  from  the  people,  and  thus  add  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  nation.  But  it  will  be  bad,  indeed, 
for  the  naiion  if  such  a  fault  shall  have  been  committed  by 
this  governmeiit  and  shall  be  allowed  to  pass  unacknowl- 
edged, unrebuked — as  though  it  were  a  virtue  and  no  fault. 
I  cannot  but  tliink  that  the  time  will  soon  come  in  which 
Mr.  Seward's  reading  of  the  Constitution  and  Mr.  Lincoln's 
assumption  of  illegal  power  under  that  reading  will  receive 
a  different  construction  in  the  States  than  that  put  upon  it 
by  Mr.  Binney. 

But  I  have  admitted  that  the  Constitution  itself  is  not 
perfect.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  requires  to  be  amended  on 
two  separate  points — especially  on  two ;  and  I  cannot  but 
acknowledge  that  there  would  be  great  difficulty  in  making 
such  amendments.  That  matter  of  direct  taxation  is  the 
first.  As  to  that  I  shall  speak  again  in  referring  to  the 
financial  position  of  the  country.  I  think,  however,  that  it 
must  be  admitted,  in  any  discussion  held  on  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  that  the  theory  of  taxation  as 
there  laid  down  will  not  suffice  for  the  wants  of  a  great 
nation.  If  the  States  are  to  maintain  their  ground  as  a 
great  national  power,  they  must  agree  among  themselves 
to  bear  the  cost  of  such  greatness.  "While  a  custom  duty 
was  sufficient  for  the  public  wants  of  the  United  States, 
this  fault  in  the  Constitution  was  not  felt.  But  now  that 
standing  armies  have  been  inaugurated,  that  iron-clad  ships 
are  held  as  desirable,  that  a  great  national  debt  has  been 
founded,  custom  duties  will  suffice  no  longer,  nor  will  excise 
duties  suffice.  Direct  taxation  must  be  levied,  and  such 
taxation  cannot  be  fairly  levied  w^ithout  a  change  in  the 
Constitution.  But  such  a  change  may  be  made  in  direct 
accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  ne- 
cessity for  such  an  alteration  cannot  be  held  as  proving  any 
inefficiency  in  the  original  document  for  the  purposes  orig- 
inally required. 

As  regards  the  other  point  which  seems  to  me  to  require 
amendment,  I  must  acknowledge  that  I  am  about  to  express 
simply  my  own  opinion.  Should  Americans  read  what  I 
write,  they  may  probably  say  that  I  am  recommending  them 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  215 


to  adopt  the  blunders  made  by  the  English  in  their  practice 
of  government.  Englishmen,  on  the  other  liand,  may  not 
improbably  conceive  that  a  system  which  works  well  here 
under  a  monarchy,  would  absolutely  fail  under  a  presidency 
of  four  years'  duration.  Nevertheless  I  will  venture  to 
suggest  that  the  government  of  the  United  States  would  be 
improved  in  all  respects  if  the  gentlemen  forming  the  Presi- 
dent's cabinet  were  admitted  to  seats  in  Congress.  At 
present  they  are  virtually  irresponsible.  They  are  consti- 
tutionally little  more  than  head  clerks.  This  was  all  very 
well  while  the  government  of  the  United  States  was  as  yet 
a  small  thing;  but  now  it  is  no  longer  a  small  thing.  The 
President  himself  cannot  do  all,  nor  can  he  be  in  truth  re- 
sponsible for  all.  A  cabinet,  such  as  is  our  cabinet,  is 
necessary  to  him.  Such  a  cabinet  does  exist,  and  the  mem- 
bers of  it  take  upon  themselves  the  honors  which  are  given 
to  our  cabinet  ministers.  But  they  are  exempted  from  all 
that  parliamentary  contact  which,  in  fact,  gives  to  our  cabi- 
net ministers  their  adroitness,  their  responsibility,  and  their 
position  in  the  country.  On  this  subject  also  I  must  say 
another  word  or  two  further  on. 

But  how  am  I  to  excuse  the  Constitution  on  those  points 
as  to  which  it  has,  as  I  have  said,  fallen  through,  in  respect 
to  which  it  has  shown  itself  to  be  inefficient  by  the  vreak- 
ness  of  its  own  words  ?  Seeing  that  all  the  executive  power 
is  intrusted  to  the  President,  it  is  especially  necessary  that 
the  choice  of  the  President  should  be  guarded  by  constitu- 
tional enactments ;  that  the  President  should  be  chosen  in 
such  a  manner  as  may  seem  best  to  the  concentrated  wisdom 
of  the  country.  The  President  is  placed  in  his  seat  for  four 
years.  For  that  term  he  is  irremovable.  He  acts  without 
any  majority  in  either  of  the  legislative  Houses.  He  must 
state  reasons  for  his  conduct,  but  he  is  not  responsible  for 
those  reasons.  His  own  judgment  is  his  sole  guide.  No 
desire  of  the  people  can  turn  him  out;  nor  need  he  fear  any 
clamor  from  the  press.  If  an  officer  so  high  in  power  be 
needed,  at  any  rate  the  choice  of  such  an  officer  should  be 
made  with  the  greatest  care.  The  Constitution  has  decreed 
how  such  care  should  be  exercised,  but  the  Constitution  has 
not  been  able  to  maintain  its  own  decree.  The  constituted 
electors  of  the  President  have  become  a  mere  name  ;  and  that 
officer  is  chosen  by  popular  election,  in  opposition  to  the 
intention  of  those  who  framed  the  Constitution.   The  effect 


216 


NOilTlI  AMERICA. 


of  this  may  be  seen  in  the  characters  of  the  men  so  chosen. 
Wasliington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  the  two  Adamses,  and 
Jackson  were  the  owners  of  names  that  have  become  known 
in  history.  They  were  men  who  have  left  their  marks  be- 
hind them.  Those  in  Europe  who  have  read  of  anything, 
have  read  of  them.  Americans,  whether  as  Republicans 
they  admire  Washington  and  the  Adamses,  or  as  Democrats 
hold  by  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Jackson,  do  not  at  any  rate 
blush  for  their  old  Presidents.  But  who  has  heard  of  Polk, 
of  Pierce,  of  Buchanan  ?  What  American  is  proud  of 
them  ?  In  the  old  days  the  name  of  a  future  President 
might  be  surmised.  He  would  probably  be  a  man  honored 
in  the  nation;  but  who  now  can  make  a  guess  as  to  the 
next  President?  In  one  respect  a  guess  may  be  made  with 
some  safety.  The  next  President  will  be  a  man  whose 
name  has  as  yet  offended  no  one  by  its  prominence.  But 
one  requisite  is  essential  for  a  President;  he  must  be  a  man 
whom  none  as  yet  have  delighted  to  honor. 

This  has  come  of  universal  suffrage ;  and  seeing  that  it 
has  come  in  spite  of  the  Constitution,  and  not  by  the  Con- 
stitution, it  is  very  bad.  Nor  in  saying  this  am  I  speaking 
my  own  conviction  so  much  as  that  of  all  educated  Ameri- 
cans with  whom  I  have  discussed  the  subject.  At  the  pres- 
ent moment  universal  suffrage  is  not  popular.  Those  who 
are  the  highest  among  the  people  certainly  do  not  love  it.  I 
doubt  whether  the  masses  of  the  people  have  ever  craved  it. 
It  has  been  introduced  into  the  presidential  elections  by 
men  called  politicians;  by  men  who  have  made  it  a  matter 
of  trade  to  dabble  in  State  affairs,  and  who  have  gradually 
learned  to  see  how  the  constitutional  law,  with  reference  to 
the  presidential  electors,  could  be  set  aside  without  any 
positive  breach  of  the  Constitution.* 

Whether  or  no  any  backward  step  can  now  be  taken — 
whether  these  elections  can  again  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
men  fit  to  exercise  a  choice  in  such  a  matter — may  well  be 


*  On  this  matter  one  of  the  best,  and  best-informed  Americans 
that  I  have  known,  told  nie  that  he  differed  from  me.  "It  intro- 
duced itself,"  said  he.  "It  was  the  result  of  social  and  political 
forces.  Election  of  the  President  by  popular  choice  became  a  neces- 
sity." The  meaning  of  this  is,  that  in  regard  to  their  presidential 
elections  the  United  States  drifted  into  universal  sulfrage.  I  do  not 
know  that  his  theory  is  one  more  comfortable  for  his  country  than 
my  own. 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  217 

doubted.  Facilis  descensus  Averni.  But  the  recovery  of 
the  downward  steps  is  very  difficult.  On  that  subject,  how- 
ever, I  hardly  venture  here  to  give  an  opinion.  I  only  de- 
clare what  has  been  done,  and  express  my  belief  that  it  has 
not  been  done  in  conformity  with  the  wishes  of  the  people, 
as  it  certainly  has  not  been  done  in  conformity  with  the 
intention  of  the  Constitution. 

In  another  matter  a  departure  has  been  made  from  the 
conservative  spirit  of  the  Constitution.  This  departure  is 
equally  grave  with  the  other,  but  it  is  one  which  certainly 
does  admit  of  correction.  I  allude  to  the  present  position 
assumed  by  many  of  the  Senators,  and  to  the  instructions 
given  to  them  by  the  State  legislatures  as  to  the  votes  which 
they  shall  give  in  the  Senate.  An  obedience  on  their  part 
to  such  instructions  is  equal  in  its  effects  to  the  introduction 
of  universal  suffrage  into  the  elections.  It  makes  them  hang 
upon  the  people,  divests  them  of  their  personal  responsi- 
bility, takes  away  all  those  advantages  given  to  them  by  a  six 
years'  certain  tenure  of  oSice,  and  annuls  the  safety  secured 
by  a  conservative  method  of  election.  Here  again  I  must 
declare  my  opinion  that  this  democratic  practice  has  crept 
into  the  Senate  without  any  expressed  wish  of  the  people. 
In  all  such  matters  the  people  of  the  nation  has  been 
strangely  undemonstrative.  It  has  been  done  as  part  of  a 
system  which  has  been  used  for  transferring  the  political 
power  of  the  nation  to  a  body  of  trading  politicians  who 
have  become  known  and  felt  as  a  mass,  and  not  known  and 
felt  as  individuals.  I  find  it  difficult  to  describe  the  present 
political  position  of  the  States  in  this  respect.  The  mil- 
lions of  the  people  are  eager  for  the  Constitution,  are  proud 
of  their  power  as  a  nation,  and  are  ambitious  of  national 
greatness.  But  they  are  not,  as  I  think,  especially  desirous 
of  retaining  political  influences  in  their  own  hands.  At 
many  of  the  elections  it  is  difficult  to  induce  them  to 
vote.  They  have  among  them  a  half-knowledge  that  poli- 
tics is  a  trade  in  the  hands  of  the  lawyers,  and  that  they 
are  the  capital  by  which  those  political  tradesmen  carry  on 
their  business.  These  politicians  are  all  lawyers.  Politics 
and  law  go  together  as  naturally  as  the  possession  of  land 
and  the  exercise  of  magisterial  powers  do  with  us.  It  may 
be  well  that  it  should  be  so,  as  the  lawyers  are  the  best- 
educated  men  of  the  country,  and  need  not  necessarily  be 
the  most  dishonest.  Political  power  has  come  into  their 
VOL.  n. — 19 


218 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


hands,  and  it  is  for  their  purposes  and  by  their  influences 
that  the  spread  of  democracy  has  been  en-couraged. 

As  regards  the  Senate,  the  recovery  of  its  old  dignity 
and  former  position  is  within  its  own  power,  Xo  amend- 
ment of  the  Constitution  is  needed  here,  nor  has  the  weak- 
ness come  from  any  insufficiency  of  the  Constitution.  The 
Senate  can  assume  to  itself  to-morrow  its  own  glories,  and 
can,  by  doing  so,  become  the  saviour  of  the  honor  and 
glory  of  the  nation.  It  is  to  the  Senate  that  we  must  look 
for  that  conservative  element  which  may  protect  the  United 
States  from  the  violence  of  demagogues  on  one  side,  and 
from  the  despotism  of  military  power  on  the  other.  The 
Senate,  and  the  Senate  only,  can  keep  the  President  in 
check.  The  Senate  also  has  a  power  over  the  Lower  House 
with  reference  to  the  disposal  of  money,  which  deprives  the 
House  of  ^Representatives  of  that  exclusive  authority  which 
belongs  to  our  House  of  Commons.  It  is  not  simply  that 
the  House  of  Kepresentatives  cannot  do  what  is  done  by 
the  House  of  Commons.  There  is  more  than  this.  To 
the  Senate,  in  the  minds  of  all  Americans,  belongs  that 
superior  prestige,  that  acknowledged  possession  of  the 
greater  power  and  fuller  scope  for  action,  which  is  with  us 
as  clearly  the  possession  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
United  States  Senate  can  be  conservative,  and  can  be  so  by 
Yirtue  of  the  Constitution.  The  love  of  the  Constitution 
in  the  hearts  of  all  Americans  is  so  strong  that  the  exercise 
of  such  power  by  the  Senate  would  strengthen  rather  than 
endanger  its  position.  I  could  wish  that  the  Senators  would 
abandon  their  money  payments,  but  I  do  not  imagine  that 
that  will  be  done  exactly  in  these  days. 

I  have  now  endeavored  to  describe  the  strength  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  to  explain  its  weak- 
ness. The  great  question  is  at  this  moment  being  solved, 
whether  or  no  that  Constitution  will  still  be  found  equal  to 
its  requirements.  It  has  hitherto  been  the  main-spring  in 
the  government  of  the  people.  They  have  trusted  with 
almost  childlike  confidence  to  the  wisdom  of  their  founders, 
and  have  said  to  their  rulers — "  There  !  in  those  words  you 
must  find  the  extent  and  the  limit  of  your  powers.  It  is 
written  down  for  you,  so  that  he  who  runs  may  read."  That 
writing  down,  as  it  were,  at  a  single  sitting,  of  a  sufficient 
code  of  instructions  for  the  governors  of  a  great  nation, 
had  not  hitherto  iu  the  world's  history  been  found  to  answer. 


THE  GOVERNMENT. 


219 


In  this  instance  it  lias,  at  any  rate,  answered  better  than  in 
any  other,  probably  becanse  the  words  so  written  contained 
in  them  less  pretense  of  finality  in  political  wisdom  than 
other  written  constitutions  have  assumed.  A  young  tree 
must  bend,  or  the  winds  will  certainly  break  it.  For  my- 
self I  can  honestly  express  my  hope  that  no  storm  may 
destroy  this  tree. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  GOVERNMENT. 

In  speaking  of  the  American  Constitution  I  have  said  so 
much  of  the  American  form  of  government  that  but  little 
more  is  left  to  me  to  say  under  that  heading.  Neverthe- 
less, I  should  hardly  go  through  the  work  which  I  have  laid 
out  for  myself  if  I  did  not  endeavor  to  explain  more  con- 
tinuously, and  perhaps  more  graphically,  than  I  found  my- 
self able  to  do  in  the  last  chapter,  the  system  on  which 
public  affairs  are  managed  in  the  United  States. 

And  here  I  must  beg  my  readers  again  to  bear  in  mind 
how  moderate  is  the  amount  of  governing  which  has  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  the  government  of  the  United  States;  how 
moderate,  as  compared  with  the  amount  which  has  to  be 
done  by  the  Queen's  officers  of  state  for  Great  Britain,  or 
by  the  Emperor,  with  such  assistance  as  he  may  please  to 
accept  from  his  officers  of  state,  for  France.  That  this  is 
so  must  be  attributed  to  more  than  one  cause ;  but  the  chief 
cause  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found  in  the  very  nature  of  a 
federal  government.  The  States  are  individually  sovereign, 
and  govern  themselves  as  to  all  internal  matters.  All  the 
judges  in  England  are  appointed  by  the  Crown ;  but  in  the 
United  States  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  judges  are 
nominated  by  the  President.  The  greater  number  are  serv- 
ants of  the  different  States.  The  execution  of  the  ordinary 
laws  for  the  protection  of  men  and  property  does  not  fall 
on  the  government  of  the  United  States,  but  on  the  execu- 
tives of  the  individual  States — unless  in  some  special  mat- 


220 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ters,  which  will  be  defined  iu  the  next  chapter.  Trade, 
education,  roads,  religion,  the  passing  of  new  measures  for 
the  internal  or  domestic  comfort  of  the  people, — all  these 
things  are  more  or  less  matters  of  care  to  our  government. 
In  the  States  they  are  matters  of  care  to  the  governments 
of  each  individual  State,  but  are  not  so  to  the  central  gov- 
ernment at  Washington. 

But  there  are  other  causes  which  operate  in  the  same  di- 
rection, and  which  have  hitherto  enabled  the  Presidents  of 
the  United  States,  with  their  ministers,  to  maintain  their 
positions  without  much  knowledge  of  statecraft,  or  the 
necessity  for  that  education  in  state  matters  which  is  so 
essential  to  our  public  men.  In  the  first  place,  the  United 
States  have  hitherto  kept  their  hands  out  of  foreign  politics. 
*  If  they  have  not  done  so  altogether,  they  have  so  greatly 
abstained  from  meddling  in  them  that  none  of  that  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  other  nations  has  been  necessary 
to  them  which  is  so  essential  with  us,  and  which  seems  to 
be  regarded  as  the  one  thing  needed  in  the  cabinets  of  other 
European  nations.  This  has  been  a  great  blessing  to  the 
United  States,  but  it  has  not  been  an  unmixed  blessing.  It 
has  been  a  blessing  because  the  absence  of  such  care  has 
saved  the  country  from  trouble  and  from  expense.  But 
such  a  state  of  things  was  too  good  to  last;  and  the  bless- 
ing has  not  been  unmixed,  seeing  that  now,  when  that  ab- 
sence of  concern  in  foreign  matters  has  been  no  longer  pos- 
sible, the  knowledge  necessary  for  taking  a  dignified  part 
in  foreign  discussions  has  been  found  wanting.  Mr.  Seward 
is  now  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Aflairs  in  the  States,  and 
it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  he  has  made  himself  a 
laughing-stock  among  the  diplomatists  of  Europe,  by  the 
mixture  of  his  ignorance  and  his  arrogance.  His  reports 
to  his  own  ministers  during  the  single  year  of  his  office,  as 
published  by  himself  apparently  with  great  satisfaction,  are 
a  monument  not  so  much  of  his  incapacity  as  of  his  want 
of  training  for  such  work.  We  all  know  his  long  state- 
papers  on  the  "Trent"  affair.  What  are  we  to  think  of  a 
statesman  who  acknowledges  the  action  of  his  country's 
servant  to  have  been  wrong,  and  in  the  same  breath  declares 
that  he  would  have  held  by  that  wrong,  had  the  material 
welfare  of  his  country  been  thereby  improved  ?  The  United 
States  have  now  created  a  great  army  and  a  great  debt. 
They  will  soon  also  have  created  a  great  navy.    Affairs  of 


THE  GOVERNMENT. 


221 


other  nations  will  press  upon  them,  and  they  will  press 
against  the  affairs  of  other  nations.  In  tliis  way  statecraft 
will  become  necessary  to  them ;  and  by  degrees  their  minis- 
ters will  become  habile,  graceful,  adroit,  and  perhaps  crafty, 
as  are  the  ministers  of  other  nations. 

And,  moreover,  the  United  States  have  had  no  outlying 
colonies  or  dependencies,  such  as  an  India  and  Canada  are 
to  us,  as  Cuba  is  and  Mexico  was  to  Spain,  and  as  were  the 
provinces  of  the  Roman  empire.  Territories  she  has  had, 
but  by  the  peculiar  beneficence  of  her  political  arrange- 
ments, these  Territories  have  assumed  the  guise  of  sover- 
eign States,  and  been  admitted  into  federal  partnership  on 
equal  terms,  with  a  rapidity  which  has  hardly  left  to  the 
central  government  the  reality  of  any  dominion  of  its  own. 
We  are  inclined  to  suppose  that  these  new  States  have  been 
allowed  to  assume  their  equal  privileges  and  State  rights 
because  they  have  been  contiguous  to  the  old  States,  as 
though  it  were  merely  an  extension  of  frontier.  But  this 
has  not  been  so.  California  and  Oregon  have  been  very 
much  farther  from  Washington  than  the  Canadas  are  from 
London.  Indeed  they  are  still  farther,  and  I  hardly  know 
whether  they  can  be  brought  much  nearer  than  Canada  is 
to  us,  even  with  the  assistance  of  railways.  But  neverthe- 
less California  and  Oregon  were  admitted  as  States,  the 
former  as  quickly  and  the  latter  much  more  quickly  than  its 
population  would  seem  to  justify  Congress  in  doing,  accord- 
ing to  the  received  ratio  of  population.  A  preference  in 
this  way  has  been  always  given  by  the  United  States  to  a 
young  population  over  one  that  was  older.  Oregon  with 
its  60,000  inhabitants  has  one  Representative.  New  York 
with  4,000,000  inhabitants  has  thirty-three.  But  in  order 
to  be  equal  with  Oregon,  New  Yoik  should  have  sixty-six. 
In  this  way  the  outlying  populatioiis  have  been  encouraged 
to  take  upon  themselves  their  own  governance,  and  the 
governing  power  of  the  President  and  his  cabinet  has  been 
kept  within  moderate  limits. 

But  not  the  less  is  the  position  of  the  President  very 
dominant  in  the  eyes  of  us  Englishmen  by  reason  of  the 
authority  with  which  he  is  endowed.  It  is  not  that  the 
scope  of  his  power  is  great,  but  that  he  is  so  nearly  irre- 
sponsible in  the  exercise  of  that  power.  We  know  that  he 
can  be  impeached  by  the  Representatives  and  expelled  from 
his  ofiBce  by  the  verdict  of  the  Senate;  but  this  in  fact  does 
VOL.  II.— 19* 


222 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


not  amount  to  much.  Responsibility  of  this  nature  is 
doubtless  very  necessary,  and  prevents  ebullitions  of 
tyranny  such  as  those  in  which  a  sultan  or  an  emperor 
may  indulge;  but  it  is  not  that  responsibility  which  espe- 
cially recommends  itself  to  the  minds  of  free  men.  So 
much  of  responsibility  they  take  as  a  matter  of  course,  as 
they  do  the  air  which  they  breathe.  It  would  be  nothing 
to  us  to  know  that  Lord  Palmerston  could  be  impeached 
for  robbing  the  treasury,  or  Lord  Russell  punished  for 
selling  us  to  Austria.  It  is  well  that  such  laws  should 
exist,  but  we  do  not  in  the  least  suspect  those  noble  lords 
of  such  treachery.  We  are  anxious  to  know,  not  in  what 
way  they  may  be  impeached  and  beheaded  for  great  crimes, 
but  by  what  method  they  may  be  kept  constantly  straight 
in  small  matters.  That  they  are  true  and  honest  is  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  But  they  must  be  obedient  also,  discreet, 
capable,  and,  above  all  things,  of  one  mind  with  the  public. 
Let  them  be  that ;  or  if  not  they,  then  with  as  little  delay 
as  may  be,  some  others  in  their  place.  That  with  us  is  the 
meaning  of  ministerial  responsibility.  To  that  responsi- 
bility all  the  cabinet  is  subject.  But  in  the  government  of 
the  United  States  there  is  no  such  responsibility.  The 
President  is  placed  at  the  head  of  the  executive  for  four 
years,  and  while  he  there  remains  no  man  can  question  him. 
It  is  not  that  the  scope  of  his  power  is  great.  Our  own 
Prime  Minister  is  doubtless  more  pow^erful  —  has  a  wider 
authority.  But  it  is  that  within  the  scope  of  his  power  the 
President  is  free  from  all  check.  There  are  no  reins,  con- 
stitutional or  unconstitutional,  by  which  he  can  be  restrained. 
He  can  absolutely  repudiate  a  majority  of  both  Houses,  and 
refuse  the  passage  of  any  act  of  Congress  even  though  sup- 
ported by  those  majorities.  He  can  retain  the  services  of 
ministers  distasteful  to  the  whole  country.  He  can  place 
his  own  myrmidons  at  the  head  of  the  army  and  navy,  or 
can  himself  take  the  command  immediately  on  his  own 
shoulders.  All  this  he  can  do,  and  there  is  no  one  that  can 
question  him. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  that  I  should  point  out  the  funda- 
mental difference  between  our  king  or  queen,  and  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  Our  sovereign,  we  all  know,  is 
not  responsible.  Such  is  the  nature  of  our  constitution. 
But  there  is  not  on  that  account  any  analogy  between  the 
irresponsibility  of  the  Queen  and  that  of  the  President. 


THE  GOVERNMENT. 


223 


The  Queen  can  do  no  wrong;  but  therefore,  in  all  matters 
of  policy  and  governance,  she  must  be  ruled  hy  advice.  For 
that  advice  her  ministers  are  responsible;  and  no  act  of 
policy  or  governance  can  be  done  in  England  as  to  which 
responsibility  does  not  immediately  settle  on  the  shoulders 
appointed  to  bear  it.  But  this  is  not  so  in  the  States. 
The  President  is  nominally  responsible.  But  from  that 
every-day  working  responsibility,  which  is  to  us  so  inval- 
uable, the  President  is  in  fact  free. 

I  will  give  an  instance  of  this.  Now,  at  this  very 
moment  of  my  writing,  news  has  reached  us  that  President 
Lincoln  has  relieved  General  McClellan  from  the  command 
of  the  whole  army,  that  he  has  given  separate  commands  to 
two  other  generals — to  General  Halleck,  namely,  and,  alas! 
to  General  Fremont,  and  that  he  has  altogether  altered  the 
whole  organization  of  the  military  command  as  it  previously 
existed.  This  he  did  not  only  during  war,  but  with  refer- 
ence to  a  special  battle,  for  the  special  fighting  of  which  he, 
as  ex-officio  commander-in-chief  of  the  forces,  had  given 
orders.  I  do  not  hereby  intend  to  criticise  this  act  of  the 
President's,  or  to  point  out  that  that  has  been  done  which 
had  better  have  been  left  undone.  The  President,  in  a 
strategetical  point  of  view,  may  have  been,  very  probably 
has  been,  quite  right.  I,  at  any  rate,  cannot  say  that  he 
has  been  wrong.  But  then  neither  can  anybody  else  say  so 
with  any  power  of  making  himself  heard.  Of  this  action 
of  the  President's,  so  terribly  great  in  its  importance  to  the 
nation,  no  one  has  the  power  of  expressing  any  opinion  to 
which  the  President  is  bound  to  listen.  For  four  years  he 
has  this  sway,  and  at  the  end  of  four  years  he  becomes  so 
powerless  that  it  is  not  then  worth  the  while  of  any  dema- 
gogue in  a  fourth-rate  town  to  occupy  his  voice  with  that 
President's  name.  The  anger  of  the  country  as  to  the 
things  done  both  by  Pierce  and  Buchanan  is  very  bitter. 
But  who  wastes  a  thought  upon  either  of  these  men?  A 
past  President  in  the  United  States  is  of  less  consideration 
than  a  past  mayor  in  an  English  borough.  Whatever 
evil  he  may  have  done  during  his  office,  when  out  of  office 
he  is  not  worth  the  powder  which  would  be  expended  in 
an  attack. 

But  the  President  has  his  ministers  as  our  Queen  has 
hers.  In  one  sense  he  has  such  ministers.  He  has  high 
State  servants  who  under  him  take  the  control  of  the  various 


224 


NORTn  AMERICA. 


departments,  and  exercise  among  them  a  certain  degree  of 
patronage  and  executive  power.  But  they  are  the  Presi- 
dent's ministers,  and  not  the  ministers  of  the  people.  Till 
lately  there  has  been  no  chief  minister  among  them,  nor  am 
I  prepared  to  say  that  there  is  any  such  chief  at  present. 
According  to  the  existing  theory  of  the  government  these 
gentlemen  have  simply  been  the  confidential  servants  of  the 
commonwealth  under  the  President,  and  have  been  attached 
each  to  his  own  department  without  concerted  political 
alliance  among  themselves,  without  any  acknowledged  chief 
below  the  President,  and  without  any  combined  responsi- 
bility even  to  the  President.  If  one  minister  was  in  fault — 
let  us  say  the  Postmaster-General — he  alone  was  in  fault, 
and  it  did  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  any  other  minister  either  to 
defend  him,  or  to  declare  that  his  conduct  was  indefensible. 
Each  owed  his  duty  and  his  defense  to  the  President  alone; 
and  each  might  be  removed  alone,  witliout  explanation 
given  by  the  President  to  the  others.  I  imagine  that  the 
late  practice  of  the  President's  cabinet  has  in  some  degree 
departed  from  this  theory;  but  if  so,  the  departure  has 
sprung  from  individual  ambition  rather  than  from  any  pre- 
concerted plan.  Some  one  place  in  the  cabinet  has  seemed 
to  give  to  some  one  man  an  opportunity  of  making  himself 
pre-eminent,  and  of  this  opportunity  advantage  has  been 
taken.  I  am  not  now  intending  to  allude  to  any  individ- 
ual, but  am  endeavoring  to  indicate  the  way  in  which  a 
ministerial  cabinet,  after  the  fashion  of  our  British  cabinet, 
is  struggling  to  get  itself  righted.  No  doubt  the  position 
of  Foreign  Secretary  has  for  some  time  past  been  con- 
sidered as  the  most  influential  under  the  President.  This 
has  been  so  much  the  case  that  many  have  not  hesitated  to 
call  the  Secretary  of  State  the  chief  minister.  At  the 
present  moment.  May,  18G2,  the  gentleman  who  Is  at  the 
head  of  the  War  Department  has,  I  think,  in  his  own  hands 
greater  power  than  any  of  his  colleagues. 

It  will  probably  come  to  pass  before  long  that  one  special 
minister  will  be  the  avowed  leader  of  the  cabinet,  and  that  he 
will  be  recognized  as  the  chief  servant  of  the  States  under  the 
President.  Our  own  cabinet,  which  now-a-days  seems  with 
us  to  be  an  institution  as  fixed  as  Parliament  and  as  neces- 
sary as  the  throne,  has  grown  by  degrees  into  its  present 
shape,  and  is  not  in  truth  nearly  so  old  as  many  of  us  sup- 
pose it  to  be.    It  shaped  itself,  I  imagine,  into  its  present 


THE  GOVERNMENT. 


225 


form,  and  even  into  its  present  joint  responsibility,  during 
the  reign  of  George  III.  It  must  be  remembered  that  even 
witli  us  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  constitutional  Prime 
Minister,  and  that  our  Prime  Minister  is  not  placed  above 
the  other  ministers  in  any  manner  that  is  palpable  to  the 
senses.  He  is  paid  no  more  than  the  others;  he  has  no 
superior  title;  he  does  not  take  the  highest  rank  among 
them ;  he  never  talks  of  his  subordinates,  but  always  of  his 
colleagues ;  he  has  a  title  of  his  own,  that  of  First  Lord  of 
the  Treasury,  but  it  implies  no  headship  in  the  cabinet.  That 
he  is  the  head  of  all  political  power  in  the  nation,  the  Atlas 
who  has  to  bear  the  globe,  the  god  in  whose  hands  rest  the 
thunderbolts  and  the  showers,  all  men  do  know.  No  man's 
position  is  more  assured  to  him.  But  the  bounds  of  that 
position  are  written  in  no  book,  are  defined  by  no  law,  have 
settled  themselves  not  in  accordance  with  the  recorded 
wisdom  of  any  great  men,  but  as  expediency  and  the  fitness 
of  political  things  in  Great  Britain  have  seemed  from  time 
to  time  to  require.  This  drifting  of  great  matters  into  their 
proper  places  is  not  as  closely  in  accordance  with  the  idio- 
syncrasies of  the  American  people  as  it  is  with  our  own. 
They  would  prefer  to  define  by  words,  as  the  French  do, 
what  shall  be  the  exact  position  of  every  public  servant  con- 
nected with  their  government ;  or  rather  of  every  public 
servant  with  whom  the  people  shall  be  held  as  having  any 
concern.  But  nevertheless,  I  think  it  will  come  to  pass  that 
a  cabinet  will  gradually  form  itself  at  Washington  as  it  has 
done  at  London,  and  that  of  that  cabinet  there  will  be  some 
recognized  and  ostensible  chief. 

But  a  Prime  Minister  in  the  United  States  can  never  take 
the  place  there  which  is  taken  here  by  our  Premier.  Over 
our  Premier  there  is  no  one  politically  superior.  The  highest 
political  responsibility  of  the  nation  rests  on  him.  In  the 
States  this  must  always  rest  on  the  President,  and  any  min- 
ister, whatever  may  be  his  name  or  assumed  position,  can 
only  be  responsible  through  the  President.  And  it  is  here 
especially  that  the  working  of  the  United  States  system  of 
government  seems  to  me  deficient — appears  as  though  it 
wanted  something  to  make  it  perfect  and  round  at  all  points. 
Our  ministers  retire  from  their  offices  as  do  the  Presidents ; 
and  indeed  the  ministerial  term  of  office  with  us,  though  of 
course  not  fixed,  is  in  truth  much  shorter  than  the  presi- 
dential term  of  four  years.  But  our  ministers  do  not  in  fact 


22G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


ever  go  out.  At  one  time  they  take  one  position,  with  pay, 
patronage,  and  power ;  and  at  another  time  another  posi- 
tion, without  these  good  things  ;  but  in  either  position  they 
are  acting  as  public  men,  and  are  in  truth  responsible  for 
what  they  say  and  do.  But  the  President,  on  whom  it  is 
presumed  that  the  whole  of  the  responsibility  of  the  United 
States  government  rests,  goes  out  at  a  certain  day,  and  of 
him  no  more  is  heard.  There  is  no  future  before  hira  to 
urge  him  on  to  constancy ;  no  hope  of  other  things  beyond, 
of  greater  honors  and  a  wider  fame,  to  keep  him  wakeful  in 
his  country's  cause.  He  has  already  enrolled  his  name  on 
the  list  of  his  country's  rulers,  and  received  what  reward 
his  country  can  give  him.  Conscience,  duty,  patriotism  may 
make  him  true  to  his  place.  True  to  his  place,  in  a  certain 
degree,  they  will  make  him.  But  ambition  and  hope  of 
things  still  to  come  are  the  moving  motives  of  the  minds  of 
most  men.  Few  men  can  allow  their  energies  to  expand  to 
their  fullest  extent  in  the  cold  atmosphere  of  duty  alone. 
The  President  of  the  States  must  feel  that  he  has  reached 
the  top  of  the  ladder,  and  that  he  soon  will  have  done  with 
life.  As  he  goes  out  he  is  a  dead  man.  And  what  can  be 
expected  from  one  who  is  counting  the  last  lingering  hours 
of  his  existence  ?  "It  will  not  be  in  my  time,"  Mr.  Buchanan 
is  reported  to  have  said,  when  a  friend  spoke  to  him  with 
warning  voice  of  the  coming  rebellion.  "It  will  not  be  in 
my  time."  In  the  old  days,  before  democracy  had  prevailed 
in  upsetting  that  system  of  presidential  election  which  the 
Constitution  had  intended  to  fix  as  permanent,  the  Presi- 
dents were  generally  re-elected  for  a  second  term.  Of  the 
first  seven  Presidents  five  were  sent  back  to  the  White 
House  for  a  second  period  of  four  years.  But  this  has  never 
been  done  since  the  days  of  General  Jackson ;  nor  will  it  be 
done,  unless  a  stronger  conservative  reaction  takes  place 
than  the  country  even  as  yet  seems  to  promise.  As  things 
have  lately  ordered  themselves,  it  may  almost  be  said  that 
no  man  in  the  Union  would  be  so  improbable  a  candidate 
for  the  Presidency  as  the  outgoing  President.  And  it  has 
been  only  natural  that  it  should  be  so.  Looking  at  the  men 
themselves  who  have  lately  been  chosen,  the  fault  has  not 
consisted  in  their  non-re-election,  but  in  their  original  selec- 
tion. There  has  been  no  desire  for  great  men ;  no  search 
after  a  nian  of  such  a  nature  that,  when  tried,  the  people 
should  be  anxious  to  keep  him.   "It  will  riot  be  in  my  time," 


TUE  GOVERNMENT. 


22T 


says  the  expiring  President.  And  so,  without  dismay,  he 
sees  the  empire  of  his  country  slide  away  from  him. 

A  President,  with  the  possibility  of  re-election  before 
him,  would  be  as  a  minister  who  goes  out  knowing  that 
he  may  possibly  come  in  again  before  the  session  is  over, 
and,  perhaps,  believing  that  the  chances  of  his  doing  so 
are  in  his  favor.  Under  the  existing  political  phase  of 
things  in  the  United  States,  no  President  has  any  such 
prospect;  but  the  ministers  of  the  President  have  that 
chance.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  at  present  for  a  minister 
under  one  President  to  reappear  as  a  minister  under  an- 
other; but  a  statesman  has  no  assurance  that  he  will  do 
so  because  he  has  shown  ministerial  capacity.  We  know 
intimately  the  names  of  all  our  possible  ministers — too  in- 
timately as  some  of  us  think — and  would  be  taken  much 
by  surprise  if  a  gentleman  without  an  official  reputation 
were  placed  at  the  head  of  a  high  office.  If  something  of 
this  feeling  prevailed  as  to  the  President's  cabinet,  if  there 
were  some  assurance  that  competent  statesmen  would  be 
appointed  as  Secretaries  of  State,  a  certain  amount  of 
national  responsibility  would  by  degrees  attach  itself  to 
them,  and  the  President's  shoulders  would,  to  that  amount, 
be  lightened.  As  it  is,  the  President  pretends  to  bear  a 
burden  which,  if  really  borne,  would  indicate  the  posses- 
sion of  Herculean  shoulders.  But,  in  fact,  the  burden  at 
present  is  borne  by  no  one.  The  government  of  the  United 
States  is  not  in  truth  responsible  either  to  the  people  or  to 
Congress. 

But  these  ministers,  if  it  be  desired  that  they  shall  have 
weight  in  the  country,  should  sit  in  Congress  either  as 
Senators  or  as  Representatives.  That  they  cannot  so  sit 
without  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  I  have  ex- 
plained in  the  previous  chapter;  and  any  such  amendment 
cannot  be  very  readily  made.  Without  such  seats  they 
cannot  really  share  the  responsibility  of  the  President,  or 
be  in  any  degree  amenable  to  public  opinion  for  the  advice 
which  they  give  in  their  public  functions.  It  will  be  said 
that  the  Constitution  has  expressly  intended  that  they 
should  not  be  responsible,  and  such,  no  doubt,  has  been 
the  case.  But  the  Constitution,  good  as  it  is,  cannot  be 
taken  as  perfect.  The  government  has  become  greater 
than  seems  to  have  been  contemplated  when  that  code  was 
drawn  up.    It  has  spread  itself  as  it  were  over  a  wider 


228 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


surface,  and  has  extended  to  matters  which  it  was  not 
necessary  then  to  touch.  That  theory  of  governing  by  the 
means  of  little  men  was  very  well  while  the  government  it- 
self was  small.  A  President  and  his  clerks  may  have  suf- 
ficed when  there  were  from  thirteen  to  eighteen  States; 
while  there  were  no  Territories,  or  none  at  least  that  re- 
quired government;  while  the  population  was  still  below 
five  millions ;  while  a  standing  army  was  an  evil  not  known 
and  not  feared;  while  foreign  politics  was  a  troublesome 
embroglio  in  which  it  was  quite  unnecessary  that  the  United 
States  should  take  a  part.  Now  there  are  thirty-four  States. 
The  territories  populated  by  American  citizens  stretch  from 
the  States  on  the  Atlantic  to  those  on  the  Pacific.  There 
is  a  population  of  thirty  million  souls.  At  the  present 
moment  the  United  States  are  employing  more  soldiers 
than  any  other  nation,  and  have  acknowledged  the  neces- 
sity of  maintaining  a  large  army  even  when  the  present 
troubles  shall  be  over.  In  addition  to  this  the  United 
States  have  occasion  for  the  use  of  statecraft  with  all  the 
great  kingdoms  of  Europe.  That  theory  of  ruling  by  lit- 
tle men  will  not  do  much  longer.  It  will  be  well  that  they 
should  bring  forth  their  big  men  and  put  them  in  the  place 
of  rulers. 

The  President  has  at  present  seven  ministers.  They  are 
the  Secretary  of  State,  who  is  supposed  to  have  the  direc- 
tion of  foreign  affairs ;  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who 
answers  to  our  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer;  the  Secretaries 
of  the  Army  and  of  the  Navy  ;  the  Minister  of  the  Interior ; 
the  Attorney-General ;  and  the  Postmaster-General.  If 
these  officers  were  allowed  to  hold  seats  in  one  House  or 
the  other — or  rather  if  the  President  were  enjoined  to  place 
in  these  offices  men  who  were  known  as  members  of  Con- 
gress, not  only  would  the  position  of  the  President's  minis- 
ters be  enhanced  and  their  weight  increased,  but  the  position 
also  of  Congress  would  be  enhanced  and  the  weight  of  Con- 
gress would  be  increased.  I  may,  perhaps,  best  exemplify 
this  by  suggesting  what  would  be  the  effect  on  our  Parlia- 
ment by  withdrawing  from  it  the  men  who  at  the  present 
moment — or  at  any  moment — form  the  Queen's  cabinet.  I 
will  not  say  that  by  adding  to  Congress  the  men  who  usually 
form  the  President's  cabinet,  a  weight  would  be  given  equal 
to  that  which  the  withdrawal  of  the  British  cabinet  would 
take  from  the  British  Parliament.    I  cannot  pay  that  com- 


STANDING  COMMITTEES. 


229 


pliment  to  the  President's  choice  of  servants.  But  the  re- 
lationsliip  between  Congress  and  the  President's  ministers 
would  gradually  come  to  resemble  that  which  exists  between 
Parliament  and  the  Queen's  ministers.  The  Secretaries  of 
State  and  of  the  Treasury  would  after  awhile  obtain  that 
honor  of  leading  the  Houses  which  is  exercised  by  our  high 
political  officers,  and  the  dignity  added  to  the  positions 
would  make  the  places  worthy  of  the  acceptance  of  great 
men.  It  is  hardly  so  at  present.  The  career  of  one  of 
the  President's  ministers  is  not  a  very  high  career  as  things 
now  stand ;  nor  is  the  man  supposed  to  have  achieved  much 
who  has  achieved  that  position.  I  think  it  would  be  other- 
wise if  the  ministers  were  the  leaders  of  the  legislative 
houses.  To  Congress  itself  would  be  given  the  power  of 
questioning  and  ultimately  of  controlling  these  ministers. 
The  power  of  the  President  would  no  doubt  be  diminished 
as  that  of  Congress  would  be  increased.  But  an  alteration 
in  that  direction  is  in  itself  desirable.  It  is  the  fault  of 
the  present  system  of  government  in  the  United  States  that 
the  President  has  too  much  of  power  and  weight,  while  the 
Congress  of  the  nation  lacks  power  and  weight.  As  mat- 
ters now  stand,  Congress  has  not  that  dignity  of  position 
which  it  should  hold  ;  and  it  is  without  it  because  it  is  not 
endowed  with  that  control  over  the  ofiBcers  of  the  govern- 
ment which  our  Parliament  is  enabled  to  exercise. 

The  want  of  this  close  connection  with  Congress  and  the 
President's  ministers  has  been  so  much  felt  that  it  has  been 
found  necessary  to  create  a  medium  of  communication.  This 
has  been  done  by  a  system  which  has  now  become  a  recog- 
nized part  of  the  machinery  of  the  government,  but  which 
is,  I  believe,  founded  on  no  regularly  organized  authority ; 
at  any  rate,  no  provision  is  made  for  it  in  the  Constitution, 
nor,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  it  been  established  by  any 
special  enactment  or  written  rule.  Nevertheless,  I  believe 
I  am  justified  in  saying  that  it  has  become  a  recognized  link 
in  the  system  of  government  adopted  by  the  United  States. 
In  each  House  standing  committees  are  named,  to  which  are 
delegated  the  special  consideration  of  certain  affairs  of 
State.  There  are,  for  instance.  Committees  of  Foreign  Af- 
fairs, of  Finance,  the  Judiciary  Committee,  and  others  of  a 
similar  nature.  To  these  committees  are  referred  all  ques- 
tions which  come  before  the  House  bearing  on  the  special 
subject  to  which  each  is  devoted.  Questions  of  taxation 
VOL.  IL— 20 


230 


NORTH  AMEllICA. 


are  referred  to  the  Finance  Committee  before  they  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  House  ;  and  the  House,  when  it  goes  into 
such  discussion,  lias  before  it  the  report  of  the  committee. 
In  this  way  very  much  of  the  work  of  the  legislature  is 
done  by  branches  of  each  House,  and  by  selected  men  whose 
time  and  intellects  are  devoted  to  special  subjects.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  much  time  and  useless  debate  may  be  thus 
saved ;  and  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  this  system  of 
committees  has  worked  efficiently  and  beneficially.  The 
mode  of  selection  of  the  members  has  been  so  contrived  as 
to  give  to  each  political  party  that  amount  of  preponder- 
ance in  each  committee  which  such  party  holds  in  the  House. 
If  the  Democrats  have  in  the  Senate  a  majority,  it  would 
be  within  their  power  to  vote  none  but  Democrats  into  the 
Committee  on  Finance  ;  but  this  would  be  manifestly  unjust 
to  the  Republican  party,  and  the  injustice  would  itself  frus- 
trate the  object  of  the  party  in  power ;  therefore  the  Dem- 
ocrats simply  vote  to  themselves  a  majority  in  each  com- 
mittee, keeping  to  themselves  as  great  a  preponderance  in 
the  committee  as  they  have  in  the  whole  House,  and  ar- 
ranging also  that  the  chairman  of  the  committee  shall  belong 
to  their  own  party.  By  these  committees  the  chief  legisla- 
tive measures  of  the  country  are  originated  and  inaugurated, 
as  they  are  with  us  by  the  ministers  of  the  Crown  ;  and  the 
chairman  of  each  committee  is  supposed  to  have  a  certain 
amicable  relation  with  that  minister  who  presides  over  the 
office  with  which  his  committee  is  connected.  Mr.  Sumner 
is  at  present  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs, 
and  he  is  presumed  to  be  in  connection  with  Mr.  Seward, 
who,  as  Secretary  of  State,  has  the  management  of  the  for- 
eign relations  of  the  government. 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  this  supposed  connection  between 
the  committees  and  the  ministers  is  only  a  makeshift,  show- 
ing by  its  existence  the  absolute  necessity  of  close  commu- 
nication between  the  executive  and  the  legislative,  but 
showing  also  by  its  imperfections  the  great  want  of  some 
better  method  of  communication.  In  the  first  place,  the 
chairman  of  the  committee  is  in  no  w^ay  bound  to  hold  any 
communication  with  the  minister.  He  is  simply  a  Senator, 
and  as  such  has  no  ministerial  duties  and  can  have  none. 
He  holds  no  appointment  under  the  President,  and  has  no 
palpable  connection  with  the  executive.  And  then,  it  is 
quite  as  likely  that  he  may  be  opposed  in  politics  to  the 


STANDING  COMMITTEES. 


231 


minister  as  that  he  may  agree  witli  liira.  If  tlie  two  be  op- 
posed to  each  other  on  pceneral  politics,  it  may  be  presumed 
that  they  cannot  act  together  in  union  on  one  special  sub- 
ject ;  nor,  whether  they  act  in  union  or  do  not  so  act,  can 
either  have  any  authority  over  the  other.  The  rainis'er  is 
not  responsible  to  Congress,  nor  is  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  in  any  way  bound  to  support  the  minister.  It 
is  presumed  that  the  chairman  must  know  the  minister's  se- 
crets ;  but  the  chairman  may  be  bound  by  party  considera- 
tions to  use  those  secrets  against  the  minister. 

The  system  of  committees  appears  to  me  to  be  good  as 
regards  the  work  of  legislation.  It  seems  well  adapted  to 
effect  economy  of  time  and  the  application  of  special  men 
to  special  services.  But  I  am  driven  to  think  that  that 
connection  between  the  chairmen  of  the  committees  and  the 
ministers  which  I  have  attempted  to  describe  is  an  arrange- 
ment very  imperfect  in  itself,  but  plainly  indicating  the  ne- 
cessity of  some  such  close  relation  between  the  executive 
and  the  legislature  of  the  United  States  as  does  exist  in  the 
political  system  of  Great  Britain.  With  us  the  Queen's 
minister  has  a  greater  weight  in  Parliament  than  the  Pres- 
ident's minister  could  hold  in  Congress,  because  the  Queen 
is  bound  to  employ  a  minister  in  whom  the  Parliament  has 
confidence.  As  soon  as  such  confidence  ceases,  the  minis- 
ter ceases  to  be  minister.  As  the  Crown  has  no  politics  of 
its  own,  it  is  simply  necessary  that  the  minister  of  the  day 
should  hold  the  politics  of  the  people  as  testified  by  their  rep- 
resentatives. The  machinery  of  the  President's  government 
cannot  be  made  to  work  after  this  fashion.  The  President 
himself  is  a  political  officer,  and  the  country  is  bound  to 
bear  with  his  politics  for  four  years,  whatever  those  politics 
may  be.  The  ministry  which  he  selects,  on  coming  to  his 
seat,  will  probably  represent  a  majority  in  Congress,  seeing 
that  the  same  suffrages  which  have  elected  the  President 
will  also  have  elected  the  Congress.  But  there  exists  no 
necessity  on  the  part  of  the  President  to  employ  ministers 
who  shall  carry  with  them  the  support  of  Congress.  If, 
however,  the  minister  sat  in  Congress — if  it  were  required 
of  each  minister  that  he  should  have  a  seat  either  in  one 
House  or  in  the  other — the  President  would,  I  think,  find 
himself  constrained  to  change  a  ministry  in  which  Congress 
should  decline  to  confide.  It  might  not  be  so  at  first,  but 
there  would  be  a  tendency  in  that  direction. 


232 


KORTH  AMERICA. 


The  governing  powers  do  not  rest  exclusively  with  the 
President  or  with  the  President  and  his  ministers ;  they  are 
shared  in  a  certain  degree  with  the  Senate,  which  sits  from 
time  to  time  in  executive  session,  laying  aside  at  such  pe- 
riods its  legislative  character.  It  is  this  executive  authority 
which  lends  so  great  a  dignity  to  the  Senate,  gives  it  the 
privilege  of  preponderating  over  the  other  House,  and 
makes  it  the  political  safeguard  of  the  nation.  The  ques- 
tions of  government  as  to  which  the  Senate  is  empowered 
to  interfere  are  soon  told.  All  treaties  made  by  the  Presi- 
dent must  be  sanctioned  by  the  Senate ;  and  all  appoint- 
ments made  by  the  President  must  be  confirmed  by  the 
Senate.  The  list  is  short;  and  one  is  disposed  to  think, 
when  first  hearing  it,  that  the  thing  itself  does  not  amount 
to  much.  But  it  does  amount  to  very  much  ;  it  enables  the 
Senate  to  fetter  the  President,  if  the  Senate  should  be  so 
inclined,  both  as  regards  foreign  politics  and  home  politics. 
A  Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  at  Washington  may  write 
what  dispatches  he  pleases  without  reference  to  the  Senate  ; 
but  the  Senate  interferes  before  those  dispatches  can  have 
resulted  in  any  fact  which  may  be  detrimental  to  the  nation. 
It  is  not  only  that  the  Senate  is  responsible  for  such  trea- 
ties as  are  made,  but  that  the  President  is  deterred  from 
the  making  of  treaties  for  which  the  Senate  would  decline 
to  make  itself  responsible.  Even  though  no  treaty  should 
ever  be  refused  its  sanction  by  the  Senate,  the  protecting 
power  of  the  Senate  in  that  matter  would  not  on  that  ac- 
count have  been  less  necessary  or  less  efficacious.  Though 
the  bars  with  which  we  protect  our  house  may  never  have 
been  tried  by  a  thief,  we  do  not  therefore  believe  that  our 
house  would  have  been  safe  if  such  bars  had  been  known 
to  be  wanting.  And  then,  as  to  tliat  matter  of  State  ap- 
pointments, is  it  not  the  fact  that  all  governing  power  con- 
sists in  the  selection  of  the  agents  by  whom  the  action  of 
government  shall  be  carried  on  ?  It  must  come  to  this,  I 
imagine,  when  the  argument  is  pushed  home.  The  power 
of  the  most  powerful  man  depends  only  on  the  extent  of 
his  authority  over  his  agents.  According  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  the  President  can  select  no  agent 
either  at  home  or  abroad,  for  purposes  either  of  peace  or 
war,  or  to  the  employment  of  whom  the  Senate  does  not 
agree  with  him.  Such  a  rule  as  this  should  save  the  nation 
from  the  use  of  disreputable  agents  as  public  servants.  It 


GOVERNING  POWERS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  233 


might  perliaps  have  done  much  more  toward  such  salvation 
than  it  has  as  yet  effected,  and  it  may  well  be  hoped  that  it 
will  in  future  do  more. 

Such  are  the  executive  powers  of  the  Senate;  and  it  is,  I 
think,  remarkable  that  the  Senate  has  always  used  these 
powers  with  extreme  moderation.  It  has  never  shown  a 
factious  inclination  to  hinder  government  by  unnecessary 
interference,  or  a  disposition  to  clip  the  President's  wings 
by  putting  itself  altogether  at  variance  with  him.  I  am  not 
quite  sure  whether  some  fault  may  not  have  lain  on  the 
other  side ;  whether  the  Senate  may  not  have  been  some- 
what slack  in  exercising  the  protective  privileges  given  to 
it  by  the  Constitution.  And  here  I  cannot  but  remark  how 
great  is  the  deference  paid  to  all  governors  and  edicts  of 
government  throughout  the  United  States.  One  would  have 
been  disposed  to  think  that  such  a  feeling  would  be  stronger 
in  an  old  country  such  as  Great  Britain  than  in  a  young 
co'intry  such  as  the  States.  But  I  think  that  it  is  not  so. 
There  is  less  disposition  to  question  the  action  of  govern- 
ment either  at  Washington  or  at  New  York,  than  there  is 
in  London.  Men  in  America  seem  to  be  content  v/hen  they 
have  voted  in  their  governors,  and  to  feel  that  for  them  all 
political  action  is  over  until  the  time  shall  come  for  voting 
for  others.  And  this  feeling,  which  seems  to  prevail  among 
the  people,  prevails  also  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  Bitter 
denunciations  against  the  President's  policy  or  the  Presi- 
dent's ministers  are  seldom  heard.  Speeches  are  not  often 
made  with  the  object  of  impeding  the  action  of  government. 
That  so  small  and  so  grave  a  body  as  the  Senate  should  abstain 
from  factious  opposition  to  the  government  when  employed 
on  executive  functions,  was  perhaps  to  be  expected.  It 
is  of  course  well  that  it  should  be  so.  I  confess,  however, 
that  it  has  appeared  to  me  that  the  Senate  has  not  used  the 
power  placed  in  its  hands  as  freely  as  the  Constitr.tion  has 
intended.  But  I  look  at  the  matter  as  an  Englishman,  and 
as  an  Englishman  I  can  endure  no  government  action  which 
is  not  immediately  subject  to  parliamentary  control. 

Such  are  the  governing  powers  of  the  United  States.  I 
think  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  much  more  limited  in 
their  scope  of  action  than  with  us ;  but  within  that  scope 
of  action  much  more  independent  and  self-sufficient.  And, 
in  addition  to  this,  those  who  exercise  power  in  the  United 
States  are  not  only  free  from  immediate  responsibility,  but 

VOL.  IT.— 20* 


234 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


arc  not  made  subject  to  the  hope  or  fear  of  future  judg- 
ment. Success  will  bring  no  award,  and  failure  no  punish- 
ment. I  am  not  aware  that  any  political  delinquency  has 
ever  yet  brought  down  retribution  on  the  head  of  the  of- 
fender in  the  United  States,  or  that  any  great  deed  has  been 
held  as  entitling  the  doer  of  it  to  his  country's  gratitude. 
Titles  of  nobility  they  have  none  ;  pensions  they  never 
give ;  and  political  disgrace  is  unknown.  The  line  of  pol- 
itics would  seem  to  be  cold  and  unalluring.  It  is  cold ; 
and  would  be  unalluring,  were  it  not  that  as  a  profession  it 
is  profitable.  In  much  of  this  I  expect  that  a  change  will 
gradually  take  place.  The  theory  has  been  that  public 
affairs  should  be  in  the  hands  of  little  men.  The  theory 
was  intelligible  while  the  public  affairs  were  small ;  but 
they  are  small  no  longer,  and  that  theory,  I  fancy,  will  have 
to  alter  itself.  Great  men  are  needed  for  the  government, 
and  in  order  to  produce  great  men  a  career  of  greatness 
must  be  opened  to  them.  I  can  see  no  reason  why  the 
career  and  the  men  should  not  be  forthcoming. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  LAW  COURTS  AND  LAWYERS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

I  DO  not  propose  to  make  any  attempt  to  explain  in 
detail  the  practices  and  rules  of  the  American  courts  of  law. 
No  one  but  a  lawyer  should  trust  himself  with  such  a  task, 
and  no  lawyer  would  be  enabled  to  do  so  in  the  few  pages 
which  I  shall  here  devote  to  the  subject.  My  present  ob- 
ject is  to  explain,  as  far  as  I  may  be  able  to  do  so,  the 
existing  political  position  of  the  country.  As  this  must 
depend  more  or  less  upon  the  power  vested  in  the  hands  of 
the  judges,  and  upon  the  tenure  by  which  those  judges  hold 
their  offices,  I  shall  endeavor  to  describe  the  circumstances 
of  the  position  in  which  the  American  judges  are  placed  ; 
the  mode  in  which  they  are  appointed  ;  the  difference  which 
exists  between  the  National  judges  and  the  State  judges,  and 


LAW  COURTS  AND  LAWYERS. 


235 


the  extent  to  wliich  they  are  or  are  not  lield  in  high  esteem 
by  the  p^eneral  publie  whom  they  serve. 

It  will,  I  think,  be  acknowledged  that  this  last  matter  is 
one  of  almost  paramount  importance  to  the  welfare  of  a 
country.  At  home  in  England  we  do  not  realize  the  im- 
portance to  us  in  a  political  as  well  as  social  view  of  the 
dignity  and  purity  of  our  judges,  because  we  take  from  them 
all  that  dignity  and  purity  can  give  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
honesty  of  our  bench  is  to  us  almost  as  the  honesty  of  heaven. 
No  one  dreams  that  it  can  be  questioned  or  become  ques- 
tionable, and  therefore  there  are  but  few  who  are  thankful 
for  its  blessings.  Few  Englishmen  care  to  know  much 
about  their  own  courts  of  law,  or  are  even  aware  that  the 
judges  are  the  protectors  of  their  liberties  and  property. 
There  are  the  men,  honored  on  all  sides,  trusted  by  every 
one,  removed  above  temptation,  holding  positions  which  are 
coveted  by  all  lawyers.  That  it  is  so  is  enough  for  us  ;  and 
as  the  good  thence  derived  comes  to  us  so  easily,  we  forget 
to  remember  that  we  might  possibly  be  without  it.  The 
law  courts  of  the  States  have  much  in  their  simplicity  and 
the  general  intelligence  of  their  arrangements  to  recommend 
them.  In  all  ordinary  causes  justice  is  done  with  economy, 
with  expedition,  and  I  believe  with  precision.  But  they 
strike  an  Englishman  at  once  as  being  deficient  in  splendor 
and  dignity,  as  wanting  that  reverence  which  we  think 
should  be  paid  to  words  falling  from  the  bench,  and  as 
being  in  danger  as  to  that  purity  without  which  a  judge 
becomes  a  curse  among  a  people,  a  chief  of  thieves,  and  an 
arch-minister  of  the  Evil  One.  I  say  as  being  in  danger; 
not  that  I  mean  to  hint  that  such  want  of  purity  has  been 
shown,  or  that  I  wish  it  to  be  believed  that  judges  with 
itching  palms  do  sit  upon  the  American  bench;  but  because 
the  present  political  tendency  of  the  State  arrangements 
threatens  to  produce  such  danger.  We  in  England  trust 
implicitly  in  onr  judges — not  because  they  are  Englishmen, 
but  because  they  are  Englishmen  carefully  selected  for  their 
high  positions.  We  should  soon  distrust  them  if  they  were 
elected  by  universal  suffrage  from  all  the  barristers  and  at- 
torneys practicing  in  the  different  courts ;  and  so  elected 
qn\y  for  a  period  of  years,  as  is  the  case  with  reference 
to  many  of  the  State  judges  in  America.  Such  a  mode  of 
appointment  would,  in  our  estimation,  at  once  rob  them  of 
their  prestige.    And  our  distrust  would  not  be  diminislied 


23G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


if  the  pay  accorded  to  the  work  were  so  small  that  no  lawyer 
in  good  practice  could  a'Ford  to  accept  the  situation.  When 
we  look  at  a  judg-e  in  court,  venerable  beneath  his  wig  and 
adorned  with  his  ermine,  we  do  not  admit  to  ourselves  that 
that  high  ofiBcer  is  honest  because  he  is  placed  above  tempta- 
tion by  the  magnitude  of  his  salary.  We  do  not  suspect 
that  he,  as  an  individual,  would  accept  bribes  and  favor 
suitors  if  he  were  in  want  of  money.  But,  still,  we  know  as 
a  fact  that  an  honest  man,  like  any  other  good  article,  must 
be  paid  for  at  a  high  price.  Judges  and  bishops  expect 
those  rewards  which  all  men  win  who  rise  to  the  highest 
steps  on  the  ladder  of  their  profession.  And  the  better 
they  are  paid,  within  measure,  the  better  they  will  be  as 
judges  and  bishops.  Xow,  the  judges  in  America  are  not 
well  paid,  and  the  best  lawyers  cannot  afford  to  sit  upon 
the  bench. 

With  us  the  practice  of  the  law  and  the  judicature  of  our 
law  courts  are  divided.  We  have  chancery  barristers  and 
common  law  barristers ;  and  we  have  chancery  courts  and 
courts  of  common  law.  In  the  States  there  is  no  such 
division.  It  prevails  neither  in  the  National  or  Federal 
courts  of  the  United  States,  nor  in  the  courts  of  any  of  the 
separate  States.  The  code  of  laws  used  by  the  Americans 
is  taken  almost  entirely  from  our  English  laws — or  rather,  I 
should  say,  the  Federal  code  used  by  the  nation  is  so  taken, 
and  also  the  various  codes  of  the  different  States — as  each 
State  takes  whatever  laws  it  may  think  fit  to  adopt.  Even 
the  precedents  of  our  courts  are  held  as  precedents  in  the 
American  courts,  unless  they  chance  to  jar  against  other 
decisions  given  specially  in  their  own  courts  with  reference 
to  cases  of  their  own.  In  this  respect  the  founders  of  the 
American  law  proceedings  have  shown  a  conservation  bias 
and  a  predilection  for  English  written  and  traditional  law 
which  are  much  at  variance  with  that  general  democratic 
passion  for  change  by  which  we  generally  presume  the 
Americans  to  have  been  actuated  at  their  Revolution.  But 
though  they  have  kept  our  laws,  and  still  respect  our  read- 
ing of  those  laws,  they  have  greatly  altered  and  simplified 
our  practice.  Whether  a  double  set  of  courts  of  law  and 
equity  are  or  are  not  expedient,  either  in  the  one  country  Qr 
in  the  other,  I  do  not  pretend  to  know.  It  is,  however,  the 
fact  that  there  is  no  such  division  in  the  States. 

Moreover,  there  is  no  division  in  the  legal  profession. 


THE  LEGAL  PROFESSION. 


231 


With  us  we  have  barristers  and  attorneys.  In  the  States 
the  same  man  is  both  barrister  and  attorney;  and — which 
is  perhaps  in  elFect  more  startling  —  every  lawyer  is  pre- 
sumed to  undertake  law  cases  of  every  description.  The 
same  man  makes  your  will,  sells  your  property,  brings  an 
action  for  you  of  trespass  against  your  neighbor,  defends 
you  when  you  are  acused  of  murder,  recovers  for  you  two 
and  sixpence,  and  pleads  for  you  in  an  argument  of  three 
days'  length  when  you  claim  to  be  the  sole  heir  to  your 
grandfather's  enormous  property.  I  need  not  describe  how 
terribly  distinct  with  us  is  the  difference  between  an  attor- 
ney and  a  barrister,  or  how  much  farther  than  poles  asun-  r--. 
der  is  the  future  Lord  Chancellor,  pleading  before  the  Lords 
Justices  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  from  the  gentleman  who,  at  the 
Old  Bailey,  is  endeavoring  to  secure  the  personal  liberty  of 
the  ruffian  who,  a  week  or  two  since,  walked  off  with  all 
your  silver  spoons.  In  the  States  no  such  differences  are 
known.  A  lawyer  there  is  a  lawyer,  and  is  supposed  to  do 
for  any  client  any  work  that  a  lawyer  may  be  called  on  to 
perform.  But  though  this  is  the  theory — and  as  regards 
any  difference  between  attorney  and  barrister  is  altogether 
the  fact — the  assumed  practice  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  main- 
tained as  regards  the  various  branches  of  a  lawyer's  work. 
When  the  population  was  smaller,  and  the  law  cases  were 
less  complicated,  the  theory  and  the  practice  were  no  doubt 
alike.  As  great  cities  have  grown  up,  and  properties  large 
in  amount  have  come  under  litigation,  certain  lawyers  have 
found  it  expedient  and  practicable  to  devote  themselves  to 
special  branches  of  their  profession.  But  this,  even  up  to 
the  present  time,  has  not  been  done  openly,  as  it  were,  or 
with  any  declaration  made  by  a  man  as  to  his  own  branch 
of  his  calling.  I  believe  that  no  such  declaration  on  his 
part  would  be  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  the  profes- 
sion. He  takes  a  partner,  however,  and  thus  attains  his 
object;  or  more  than  one  partner,  and  then  the  business  of 
the  house  is  divided  among  them  according  to  their  individ- 
ual specialties.  One  will  plead  in  court,  another  will  give 
chamber  counsel,  and  a  third  will  take  that  lower  business 
which  must  be  done,  but  which  first-rate  men  hardly  like 
to  do. 

It  will  easily  be  perceived  that  law  in  this  way  will  be 
made  cheaper  to  the  litigant.  Whether  or  no  that  may  be 
an  unadulterated  advantage,  I  have  my  doubts.    I  fancy 


233 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


that  the  united  professional  incomes  of  all  the  lawyers  iu 
the  States  would  exceed  in  amount  those  made  in  England. 
In  America  every  man  of  note  seems  to  be  a  lawyer;  and 
I  am  told  that  any  lawyer  who  will  work  may  make  a  sure 
income.  If  it  be  so,  it  would  seem  that  Americans  per 
head  pay  as  much  (or  more)  for  their  law  as  men  do  in  Eng- 
land. It  may  be  answered  that  they  get  more  law  for  their 
money.  That  may  be  possible,  and  even  yet  they  may  not 
be  gainers.  I  have  been  inclined  to  think  that  there  was  an 
unnecessarily  slow  and  expensive  ceremonial  among  us  in 
the  employment  of  barristers  through  a  third  party ;  it  has 
seemed  that  the  man  of  learning,  on  whose  efforts  the  liti- 
gant really  depends,  is  divided  off  from  his  client  and  em- 
ployer by  an  unfair  barrier,  used  only  to  enhance  his  own 
dignity  and  give  an  unnecessary  grandeur  to  his  position. 
I  still  think  that  the  fault  with  us  lies  in  this  direction.  But 
I  feel  that  I  am  less  inclined  to  demand  an  immediate  alter- 
ation in  our  practice  than  I  was  before  I  had  seen  any  of 
the  American  courts  of  law. 

It  should  be  generally  understood  that  lawyers  are  the 
leading  men  in  the  States,  and  that  the  governance  of  the 
country  lias  been  almost  entirely  in  their  hands  ever  since 
the  political  life  of  the  nation  became  full  and  strong.  All 
public  business  of  importance  falls  naturally  into  their  hands, 
as  with  us  it  falls  into  the  hands  of  men  of  settled  wealth 
and  landed  property.  Indeed,  the  fact  on  which  I  insist  is 
much  more  clear  and  defined  in  the  States  than  it  is  with  us. 
In  England  the  lawyers  also  obtain  no  inconsiderable  share 
of  political  and  municipal  power.  The  latter  is  perhaps 
more  in  the  hands  of  merchants  and  men  in  trade  than  of 
any  other  class;  and  even  the  highest  seats  of  political 
greatness  are  more  open  with  us  to  the' world  at  large  than 
they  seem  to  be  in  the  States  to  any  that  are  not  lawyers. 
Since  the  days  of  Washington  every  President  of  the  United 
States  has,  I  think,  been  a  lawyer,  excepting  General  Tay- 
lor. Other  Presidents  have  been  generals,  but  then  they 
have  also  been  lav\^yers.  General  Jackson  was  a  successful 
lawyer.  Almost  all  the  leading  politicians  of  the  present 
day  are  lawyers.  Seward,  Cameron,  Welles,  Stanton,  Chase, 
Sumner,  Crittenden,  Harris,  Fessenden,  are  all  lawyers. 
AVebster,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Cass  were  lawyers.  Hamil- 
ton and  Jay  were  lawyers.  Any  man  with  an  ambition  to 
enter  upon  public  life  becomes  a  lawyer  as  a  matter  of 


FEDERAL  AND  STATE  TRIBUNALS. 


230 


course.  It  seems  as  though  a  study  and  practice  of  the  law 
were  necessary  ingredients  in  a  man's  preparation  for  polit- 
ical life.  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  very  large  proportion  of 
both  Houses  of  legislature  would  be  found  to  consist  of 
lawyers.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  know  of  the  circumT 
stance  of  more  than  one  Senator  who  is  not  a  lawyer.  Law^ 
yers  form  the  ruling  class  in  America,  as  the  landowners  do 
with  us.  With  us  that  ruling  class  is  the  wealthiest  class; 
but  this  is  not  so  in  the  States.  It  might  be  wished  that  it 
were  so. 

The  great  and  ever-present  difference  between  the  National 
or  Federal  affairs  of  the  United  States  government  and  the 
affairs  of  the  government  of  each  individual  State,  should 
be  borne  in  mind  at  all  times  by  those  who  desire  to  under- 
stand the  political  position  of  the  States.  Till  this  be  re- 
alized no  one  can  have  any  correct  idea  of  the  bearings  of 
politics  in  that  country.  As  a  matter  of  course  we  in  Eng- 
land have  been  inclined  to  regard  the  government  and  Con- 
gress of  Washington  as  paramount  throughout  the  States, 
in  the  same  way  that  the  government  of  Downing  Street 
and  the  Parliament  of  Westminster  are  paramount  through 
the  British  isles.  Such  a  mistake  is  natural;  but  not  the 
less  would  it  be  a  fatal  bar  to  any  correct  understanding  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  National  and 
State  governments  are  independent  of  each  other,  and  so 
also  are  the  National  and  State  tribunals.  Each  of  these 
separate  tribunals  has  its  own  judicature,  its  own  judges,  its 
own  courts,  and  its  own  functions.  Nor  can  the  supreme 
tribunal  at  Washington  exercise  any  authority  over  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  courts  in  the  different  States,  or  influence 
the  decision  of  their  judges.  For  not  only  are  the  National 
judges  and  State  judges  independent  of  each  other,  but  the 
laws  in  accordance  with  which  they  are  bound  to  act  may 
be  essentially  different.  The  two  tribunals — those  of  the 
nation  and  of  the  State — are  independent  and  final  in  their 
several  spheres.  On  a  matter  of  State  jurisprudence  no 
appeal  lies  from  the  supreme  tribunal  of  New  York  or 
Massachusetts  to  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  nation  at 
Washington. 

The  National  tribunals  are  of  two  classes.  First,  there  is 
the  Supreme  Court  specially  ordained  by  the  Constitution. 
And  then  there  are  such  inferior  courts  as  Congress  may 
from  time  to  time  see  fit  to  establish.    Congress  has  no 


240 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


power  to  abolish  the  Supreme  Court,  or  to  erect  another 
tribunal  superior  to  it.  This  court  sits  at  Washington,  and 
is  a  final  court  of  appeal  from  the  inferior  national  courts 
of  the  Federal  empire.  A  system  of  inferior  courts,  inau- 
gurated by  Congress,  has  existed  for  about  sixty  years. 
Each  State  for  purposes  of  national  jurisprudence  is  con- 
stituted as  a  district ;  some  few  large  States,  such  as  New 
York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Illinois,  being  divided  into  two 
districts.  Each  district  has  one  district  court,  presided 
over  by  one  judge.  National  causes  in  general,  both  civil 
and  criminal,  are  commenced  in  these  district  courts,  and 
those  involving  only  small  amounts  are  ended  there.  Above 
these  district  courts  are  the  National  circuit  courts,  the  dis- 
tricts or  States  having  been  grouped  into  circuits  as  the 
counties  arc  grouped  with  us.  To  each  of  these  circuits  is 
assigned  one  of  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Wash- 
ington, who  is  the  ex-officio  judge  of  that  circuit,  and  who 
therefore  travels  as  do  our  common  law  judges.  In  each 
district  he  sits  with  the  judge  of  that  district,  and  they  two 
together  form  the  circuit  court.  Appeals  from  the  district 
court  lie  to  the  circuit  court  in  cases  over  a  certain  amount, 
and  also  in  certain  criminal  cases.  It  follows  therefore 
that  appeals  lie  from  one  judge  to  the  same  judge  when  sit- 
ting with  another — an  arrangement  which  would  seem  to 
Tbe  fraught  with  some  inconvenience.  Certain  causes,  both 
civil  and  criminal,  are  commenced  in  the  circuit  courts. 
From  the  circuit  courts  the  appeal  lies  to  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington  ;  but  such  appeal  beyond  the  circuit 
court  is  not  allowed  in  cases  which  are  of  small  magnitude 
or  which  do  not  involve  principles  of  importance.  If  there 
be  a  division  of  opinion  in  the  circuit  court  the  case  goes 
to  the  Supreme  Court ;  from  whence  it  might  be  inferred  that 
all  cases  brouo-ht  from  the  district  court  to  the  circuit  court 
would  be  sent  on  to  the  Supreme  Court,  unless  the  circuit 
judge  agreed  with  the  district  judge ;  for  the  district  judge 
having  given  his  judgment  in  the  inferior  court,  would 
probably  adhere  to  it  in  the  superior  court.  No  appeal 
lies  to  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington  in  criminal  cases. 

All  questions  that  concern  more  than  one  State,  or  that 
are  litigated  between  citizens  of  different  States,  or  which 
are  international  in  their  bearing,  come  before  the  national 
judges.  All  cases  in  which  foreigners  are  concerned,  or  the 
riglits  of  foreigners,  are  brought  or  may  be  brought  into 


JUDGES  OF  THE  NATIONAL  TRIBUNALS.  241 

the  national  courts.  So  also  are  all  causes  affecting  the 
Union  itself,  or  which  are  governed  by  the  laws  of  Con- 
gress and  not  by  the  laws  of  any  individual  State.  All 
questions  of  admiralty  law  and  maritime  jurisdiction,  and 
cases  affecting  ambassadors  or  consuls,  are  there  tried. 
Matters  relating  to  the  post-office,  to  the  customs,  the  col- 
lection of  national  taxes,  to  patents,  to  the  army  and  navy, 
and  to  the  mint,  are  tried  in  the  national  courts.  The 
theory  is,  that  the  national  tribunals  shall  expound  and  ad- 
minister the  national  laws  and  treaties,  protect  national 
offices  and  national  rights ;  and  that  foreigners  and  citizens 
of  other  States  shall  not  be  required  to  submit  to  the  deci- 
sions of  the  State  tribunals  ;  in  fact,  that  national  tribunals 
shall  take  cognizance  of  all  matters  as  to  which  the  general 
government  of  the  nation  is  responsible.  In  most  of  such 
cases  the  national  tribunals  have  exclusive  jurisdiction.  In 
others  it  is  optional  with  the  plaintiff  to  select  his  tribunal. 
It  is  then  optional  with  the  defendant,  if  brought  into  a 
State  court,  to  remain  there  or  to  remove  his  cause  into 
the  national  tribunal.  The  principle  is,  that  either  at  the 
beginning,  or  ultimately,  such  questions  shall  or  may  be 
decided  by  the  national  tribunals.  If  in  any  suit  properly 
cognizable  in  a  State  court  the  decision  should  turn  on  a 
clause  in  the  Constitution,  or  on  a  law  of  the  United  States, 
or  on  the  act  of  a  national  offense,  or  on  the  validity  of  a 
national  act,  an  appeal  lies  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  and  to  its  officers.  The  object  has  been  to 
give  to  the  national  tribunals  of  the  nation  full  cognizance 
of  its  own  laws,  treaties,  and  congressional  acts. 

The  judges  of  all  the  national  tribunals,  of  whatever 
grade  or  rank,  hold  their  offices  for  life,  and  are  removable 
only  on  impeachment.  They  are  not  even  removable  on 
an  address  of  Congress;  thus  holding  on  a  firmer  tenure 
even  than  our  own  judges,  who  may,  I  believe,  be  moved 
on  an  address  by  Parliament.  The  judges  in  America  are 
not  entitled  to  any  pension  or  retiring  allowances ;  and  as 
there  is  not,  as  regards  the  judges  of  the  national  courts, 
any  proviso  that  they  shall  cease  to  sit  after  a  certain  age, 
they  are  in  fact  immovable  whatever  may  be  their  infirmi- 
ties. Their  position  in  this  respect  is  not  good,  seeing  that 
their  salaries  will  hardly  admit  of  their  making  adequate 
provision  for  the  evening  of  life.  The  salary  of  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  United  States  is  only  1300^.  per  annum.  All 

VOL.  IL — 21 


242 


IIORTH  AMERICA. 


judges  of  the  national  courts,  of  whatever  rank,  are  ap- 
pointed by  the  President,  but  their  appointments  must  be 
confirmed  by  the  Senate.  This  proviso,  however,  gives  to 
the  Senate  practically  but  little  power,  and  is  rarely  used 
in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  President.  If  the  President 
name  one  candidate,  who  on  political  grounds  is  distasteful 
to  a  majority  of  the  Senate,  it  is  not  probable  that  a  second 
nomination  made  by  him  will  be  more  satisfactory.  This 
seems  now  to  be  understood,  and  the  nomination  of  the 
cabinet  ministers  and  of  the  judges,  as  made  by  the  Presi- 
dent, are  seldom  set  aside  or  interfered  with  by  the  Senate, 
unless  on  grounds  of  purely  personal  objection. 

The  position  of  the  national  judges  as  to  their  appoint- 
ments and  mode  of  tenure  is  very  different  from  that  of  the 
State  judges,  to  whom  in  a  few  lines  1  shall  more  specially 
allude.  This  should,  I  think,  be  specially  noticed  by  Eng- 
lishmen when  criticising  the  doings  of  the  American  courts. 
I  have  observed  statements  made  to  the  effect  that  decisions 
given  by  American  judges  as  to  international  or  maritime 
affairs  affecting  English  interests  could  not  be  trusted,  be- 
cause the  judges  so  giving  them  would  have  been  elected 
by  popular  vote,  and  would  be  dependent  on  the  popular 
voice  for  reappointment.  This  is  not  so.  Judges  are  ap- 
pointed by  popular  vote  in  very  many  of  the  States.  But 
all  matters  affecting  shipping  and  all  questions  touching 
foreigners  are  tried  in  the  national  courts  before  judges 
who  have  been  appointed  for  life.  I  should  not  myself 
have  had  any  fear  with  reference  to  the  ultimate  decision  in 
the  affair  of  Slidell  and  Mason  had  the  "  Trent "  been  car- 
ried into  New  York.  I  would,  however,  by  no  means  say 
so  much  had  the  cause  been  one  for  trial  before  the  tribunals 
of  the  State  of  New  York. 

I  have  been  told  that  we  in  England  have  occasionally 
fallen  into  the  error  of  attributing  to  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Washington  a  quasi  political  power  which  it  does  not  pos- 
sess. This  court  can  give  no  opinion  to  any  department  of 
the  government,  nor  can  it  decide  upon  or  influence  any 
subject  that  has  not  come  before  it  as  a  regularly  litigated 
case  in  law.  Though  especially  founded  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, it  has  no  peculiar  power  under  the  Constitution,  and 
stands  in  no  peculiar  relation  either  to  that  or  to  acts  of 
Congress.  It  has  no  other  power  to  decide  on  the  consti- 
tutional legality  of  an  act  of  Congress  or  an  act  of  a  State 


JUDGES  OP  THE  STATES. 


243 


legislature,  or  of  a  public  officer,  than  every  court,  State 
and  National,  high  and  low,  possesses  and  is  bound  to  exer- 
cise.   It  is  simply  the  national  court  of  last  appeal. 

In  the  different  States  such  tribunals  have  been  estab- 
lished as  each  State  by  its  constitution  and  legislation  has 
seen  fit  to  adopt.  The  States  are  entirely  free  on  this  point 
The  usual  course  is  to  have  one  Supreme  Court,  sometimes 
called  by  that  name,  sometimes  the  Court  of  Appeals,  and 
sometimes  the  Court  of  Errors.  Then  they  have  such 
especial  courts  as  their  convenience  may  dictate.  The 
State  jurisprudence  includes  all  causes  not  expressly  or  by 
necessary  implication  secured  to  the  national  courts.  The 
tribunals  of  the  States  have  exclusive  control  over  domes- 
tic relations,  religion,  education,  the  tenure  and  descent  of 
land,  the  inheritance  of  property,  police  regulations,  muni- 
cipal economy,  and  all  matters  of  internal  trade.  In  this 
category,  of  course,  come  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife, 
parent  and  child,  master  and  servant,  owner  and  slave, 
guardian  and  ward,  tradesman  and  apprentice.  So  also  do 
all  police  and  criminal  regulations  not  external  in  their 
character — highways,  railroads,  canals,  schools,  colleges, 
the  relief  of  paupers,  and  those  thousand  other  affairs  of 
the  world  by  which  men  are  daily  surrounded  in  their  own 
homes  and  their  own  districts.  As  to  such  subjects  Con- 
gress can  make  no  law,  and  over  them  Congress  and  the 
national  tribunals  have  no  jurisdiction.  Congress  cannot 
say  that  a  man  shall  be  hung  for  murder  in  New  York,  nor 
if  a  man  be  condemned  to  be  hung  in  New  York  can  the 
President  pardon  him.  The  legislature  of  New  York  must 
say  whether  or  no  hanging  shall  be  the  punishment  adjudged 
to  murder  in  that  State ;  and  the  Governor  of  the  State  of 
New  York  must  pronounce  the  man's  pardon — if  it  be  that 
he  is  to  be  pardoned.  But  Congress  must  decide  whether 
or  no  a  man  shall  be  hung  for  murder  committed  on  the 
high  seas,  or  in  the  national  forts  or  arsenals;  and  in  such 
a  case  it  is  for  the  President  to  give  or  to  refuse  the  pardon. 

The  judges  of  the  States  are  appointed  as  the  constitu- 
tion or  the  laws  of  each  State  may  direct  in  that  matter. 
The  appointments,  I  think,  in  all  the  old  States,  were  for- 
merly vested  in  the  governor.  In  some  States  such  is  still 
the  case.  In  some,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  nomination  is 
now  made,  directly,  by  the  legislature.  But  in  most  of  the 
States  the  power  of  appointing  has  been  claimed  by  the 


244 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


people,  and  the  judges  are  voted  in  by  popular  election, 
just  as  the  President  of  the  Union  and  the  Governors  of 
tlie  dilferent  States  are  voted  in.  There  has  for  some  years 
be^^n  a  growing  tendency  in  this  direction,  and  the  people 
in  most  of  the  States  have  claimed  the  power  —  or  rather 
the  power  has  been  given  to  the  people  by  politicians  who 
have  wished  to  get  into  their  hands,  in  this  way,  the  patron- 
age of  the  courts.  But  now,  at  the  present  moment,  there 
is  arising  a  strong  feeling  of  the  inexpediency  of  appoint- 
ing judges  in  such  a  manner.  An  anti-democratic  bias  is 
taking  possession  of  men's  minds,  causing  a  reaction  against 
that  tendency  to  universal  suffrage  in  everything  w^hich  pre- 
vailed before  the  war  began.  As  to  this  matter  of  the  mode 
of  appointing  judges,  I  have  heard  but  one  opinion  ex- 
pressed; and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  change  will  be 
made  in  one  State  after  another,  as  the  constitutions  of  the 
different  States  are  revised.  Such  revisions  take  place  gen- 
erally at  periods  of  about  twenty-five  years'  duration.  If, 
therefore,  it  be  acknowledged  that  the  system  be  bad,  the 
error  can  be  soon  corrected. 

Nor  is  this  mode  of  appointment  the  only  evil  that  has 
been  adopted  in  the  State  judicatures.  The  judges  in  most 
of  the  States  are  not  appointed  for  life,  nor  even  during 
good  behavior.  They  enter  their  places  for  a  certain  term 
of  years,  varying  from  fifteen  down,  I  believe,  to  seven.  I 
do  not  know  whether  any  are  appointed  for  a  term  of  less 
than  seven  years.  When  they  go  out  they  have  no  pensions ; 
and  as  a  lawyer  who  has  been  on  the  bench  for  seven  years 
can  hardly  recall  his  practice,  and  find  himself  at  once  in 
receipt  of  his  old  professional  income,  it  may  easily  be  im- 
agined how  great  will  be  the  judge's  anxiety  to  retain  his 
position  on  the  bench.  This  he  can  do  only  by  the  universal 
suffrages  of  the  people,  by  political  popularity,  and  a  gen- 
eral standing  of  that  nature  which  enables  a  man  to  come 
forth  as  the  favorite  candidate  of  the  lower  orders.  This 
may  or  may  not  be  well  when  the  place  sought  for  is  one  of 
political  power — when  the  duties  required  are  political  in 
all  their  bearings.  But  no  one  can  think  it  well  when  the 
place  sought  for  is  a  judge's  seat  on  the  bench — when  the 
duties  required  are  solely  judicial.  Whatever  hitherto  may 
have  been  the  conduct  of  the  judges  in  the  courts  of  the 
different  States,  whether  or  no  impurity  has  yet  crept  in, 
and  the  sanctity  of  justice  has  yet  been  outraged,  no  one 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


245 


can  doubt  the  tendency  of  such  an  arrangement.  At  pres- 
ent even  a  few  visits  to  the  courts  constituted  in  this  man- 
ner will  convince  an  observer  that  the  judges  on  the  bench 
are  rather  inferior  than  superior  to  the  lawyers  who  prac- 
tice before  them.  The  manner  of  address,  the  tone  of  voice, 
the  lack  of  dignity  in  the  judge,  and  the  assumption  by  the 
lawyer  before  him  of  a  higher  authority  than  his,  all  tell 
this  tale.  And  then  the  judges  in  these  courts  are  not  paid 
at  a  rate  which  will  secure  the  services  of  the  best  men. 
They  vary  in  the  different  States,  running  from  about  600Z. 
to  about  lOOOZ.  per  annum.  But  a  successful  lawyer,  prac- 
ticing in  the  courts  in  which  these  judges  sit,  not  unfre- 
quently  earns  3000Z.  a  year.  A  professional  income  of 
2000Z.  a  year  is  not  considered  very  high.  When  the  dif- 
ferent conditions  of  the  bench  are  considered,  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  judge  may  lose  his  place  after  a  short 
term  of  years,  and  that  during  that  short  term  of  years  he 
receives  a  payment  much  less  than  that  earned  by  his  suc- 
cessful professional  brethren,  it  can  hardly  be  expected  that 
first-rate  judges  should  be  found.  The  result  is  seen  daily 
in  society.  You  meet  Judge  This  and  Judge  That,  not 
knowing  whether  they  are  ex-judges  or  in-judges;  but  you 
soon  learn  that  your  friends  do  not  hold  any  very  high  social 
position  on  account  of  their  forensic  dignity. 

It  is,  perhaps,  but  just  to  add  that  in  Massachusetts,  which 
I  cannot  but  regard  as  in  many  respects  the  noblest  of  the 
States,  the  judges  are  appointed  by  the  Governor,  and  are 
appointed  for  life. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 

The  Americans  are  proud  of  much  that  they  have  done 
in  this  war,  and  indeed  much  has  been  done  which  may  jus- 
tify pride;  but  of  nothing  are  they  so  proud  as  of  the  noble 
dimensions  and  quick  growth  of  their  government  debt. 
That  Mr.  Secretary  Chase,  the  American  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  participates  in  this  feeling  I  will  not  venture  to 
VOL.  II. — 21* 


246 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


say ;  but  if  he  do  not,  he  is  well-nigh  the  only  man  in  the 
States  who  does  not  do  so.  The  amount  of  expenditure 
has  been  a  subject  of  almost  national  pride,  and  the  two 
millions  of  dollars  a  day,  which  has  been  roughly  put  down 
as  the  average  cost  of  the  war,  has  always  been  mentioned 
by  Northern  men  in  a  tone  of  triumph.  This  feeling  is,  I 
think,  intelligible;  and  although  we  cannot  allude  to  it 
without  a  certain  amount  of  inward  sarcasm,  a  little  gentle 
laughing  in  the  sleeve,  at  the  nature  of  this  national  joy,  I 
am  not  prepared  to  say  that  it  is  altogether  ridiculous.  If 
the  country  be  found  able  and  willing  to  pay  the  bill,  this 
triumph  in  the  amount  of  the  cost  will  hereafter  be  regarded 
as  having  been  anything  but  ridiculous.  In  private  life  an 
individual  will  occasionally  be  known  to  lavish  his  whole 
fortune  on  the  accomplishment  of  an  object  which  he  con- 
ceives to  be  necessary  to  his  honor.  If  the  object  be  in 
itself  good,  and  if  the  money  be  really  paid,  we  do  not 
laugh  at  such  a  man  for  the  sacrifices  which  he  makes. 

For  myself,  I  think  that  the  object  of  the  Northern  States 
in  this  war  has  been  good.  I  think  that  they  could  not  have 
avoided  the  war  without  dishonor,  and  that  it  was  incum- 
bent on  them  to  make  themselves  the  arbiters  of  the  future 
position  of  the  South,  whether  that  future  position  shall  or 
shall  not  be  one  of  secession.  This  they  could  only  do  by 
fighting.  Had  they  acceded  to  secession  without  a  civil 
war,  they  would  have  been  regarded  throughout  Europe  as 
having  shown  themselves  inferior  to  the  South,  and  would 
for  many  years  to  come  have  lost  that  prestige  which  their 
spirit  and  energy  had  undoubtedly  won  for  them ;  and  in 
their  own  country  such  submission  on  their  part  would  have 
practically  given  to  the  South  the  power  of  drawing  the 
line  of  division  between  the  two  new  countries.  That  line, 
so  drawn,  would  have  given  Virginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri  to  the  Southern  Republic.  The  great  effect 
of  the  war  to  the  North  will  be,  that  the  Northern  men 
will  draw  the  line  of  secession,  if  any  such  line  be  drawn. 
I  still  think  that  such  line  will  ultimately  be  drawn,  and 
that  the  Southern  States  will  be  allowed  to  secede.  But 
if  it  be  so,  Yirginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri 
will  not  be  found  among  these  seceding  States ;  and  the 
line  may  not  improbably  be  driven  south  of  North  Carolina 
and  Tennessee.  If  this  can  be  so,  the  object  of  the  war 
will,  I  think,  hereafter  be  admitted  to  have  been  good. 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


24t 


Whatever  may  be  the  cost  in  money  of  joining  the  States 
which  I  have  named  to  a  free- soil  Northern  people,  instead 
of  allowing  them  to  be  buried  in  that  dismal  swamp  which 
a  confederacy  of  Southern  slave  States  will  produce,  that 
cost  can  hardly  be  too  much.  At  the  present  moment  there 
exists  in  England  a  strong  sympathy  with  the  South,  pro- 
duced partly  by  the  unreasonable  vituperation  with  which 
the  North  treated  our  government  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  and  by  the  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell ;  partly  also 
by  that  feeling  of  good-will  which  a  looker  on  at  a  combat 
always  has  for  the  weaker  side.  But,  although  this  sym- 
pathy does  undoubtedly  exist,  I  do  not  imagine  that  many 
Englishmen  are  of  opinion  that  a  confederacy  of  Southern 
slave  States  will  ever  offer  to  the  general  civilization  of  the 
world  very  many  attractions.  It  cannot  be  thought  that 
the  South  will  equal  the  North  in  riches,  in  energy,  in 
education,  or  general  well-being.  Such  has  not  been  our 
experience  of  any  slave  country ;  such  has  not  been  our 
experience  of  any  tropical  country;  and  such  especially 
has  not  been  our  experience  of  the  Southern  States  of  the 
North  American  Union.  I  am  no  abolitionist,  but  to  me 
it  seems  impossible  that  any  Englishman  should  really  ad- 
.vocate  the  cause  of  slavery  against  the  cause  of  free  soil. 
There  are  the  slaves,  and  I  know  that  they  cannot  be 
abolished — neither  they  nor  their  chains ;  but,  for  myself, 
I  will  not  willingly  join  my  lot  with  theirs.  I  do  not  wish 
to  have  dealings  with  the  African  negro,  either  as  a  free 
man  or  as  a  slave,  if  I  can  avoid  them,  believing  that  his 
employment  by  me  in  either  capacity  would  lead  to  my  own 
degradation.*  Such,  I  think,  are  the  feelings  of  English- 
men generally  on  this  matter.  And  if  such  be  the  case, 
will  it  not  be  acknowledged  that  the  Northern  men  have 


*  In  saying  this  I  fear  that  I  shall  be  misunderstood,  let  me  use 
what  foot  note  or  other  mode  of  protestation  I  may  to  guard  myself. 
Ill  thus  speaking  of  the  African  negro,  I  do  not  venture  to  despise 
the  work  of  God's  hands.  That  He  has  made  the  negro,  for  His  own 
good  purposes,  as  He  has  the  Esquimaux,  I  am  aware.  And  I  am 
aware  that  it  is  my  duty,  as  it  is  the  duty  of  us  all,  to  see  that  no  in- 
jury be  done  to  him,  and,  if  possible,  to  assist  hin^  in  his  condition. 
When  I  declare  that  I  desire  no  dealings  with  the  negro,  I  speak  of 
him  in  the  position  in  which  I  now  find  him,  either  as  a  free  servant 
or  a  slave.  In  either  position  he  impedes  the  civilization  and  the 
progress  of  the  white  man. 


248 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


done  well  to  fight  for  a  line  which  shall  add  five  or  six 
States  to  that  Union  which  will  in  truth  be  a  union  of  free 
men,  rather  than  to  that  confederacy  which,  even  if  suc- 
cessful, must  owe  its  success  to  slavery  ? 

In  considering  this  matter  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  five  or  six  States  of  which  we  are  speaking  are  at 
present  slave  States,  but  that,  with  the  exception  of  Vir- 
ginia— of  part  only  of  Virginia — they  are  not  wedded  to 
slavery.  But  even  in  Virginia — great  as  has  been  the  gain 
which  has  accrued  to  that  unhappy  State  from  the  breed- 
ing of  slaves  for  the  Southern  market — even  in  Virginia 
slavery  would  soon  die  out  if  she  were  divided  from  the 
South  and  joined  to  the  North.  In  those  other  States,  in 
Maryland,  in  Kentucky,  and  in  Missouri,  there  is  no  desire 
to  perpetuate  the  institution.  They  have  been  slave  States, 
and  as  such  have  resented  the  rabid  abolition  of  certain 
Northern  orators.  Had  it  not  been  for  those  orators,  and 
their  oratory,  the  soil  of  Kentucky  would  now  have  been 
free.  Those  five  or  six  States  are  now  slave  States ;  but  a 
line  of  secession  drawn  south  of  them  will  be  the  line  which 
cuts  oft"  slavery  from  the  North.  If  those  States  belong  to 
the  North  when  secession  shall  be  accomplished,  they  will 
belong  to  it  as  free  States ;  but  if  they  belong  to  the  South, 
they  will  belong  to  the  South  as  slave  States.  If  they  be- 
long to  the  North,  they  will  become  rich  as  the  North  is, 
and  will  share  in  the  education  of  the  North.  If  they 
belong  to  the  South,  they  will  become  poor  as  the  South 
is,  and  will  share  in  the  ignorance  of  the  South.  If  we 
presume  that  secession  will  be  accomplished  —  and  I  for 
one  am  of  that  opinion— has  it  not  been  well  that  a  war 
should  be  waged  with  such  an  object  as  this?  If  those 
five  or  six  States  can  be  gained,  stretching  east  and  west 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  center  of  the  continent,  hundreds 
of  miles  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  north  and  south  over 
four  degrees  of  latitude — if  that  extent  of  continent  can 
be  added  to  the  free  soil  of  the  Northern  territory,  will  not 
the  contest  that  has  done  this  have  been  worth  any  money 
that  can  have  been  spent  on  it? 

So  much  as  to  the  object  to  be  gained  by  the  money 
spent  on  the  war !  And  I  think  that  in  estimating  the 
nature  of  the  financial  position  which  the  war  has  pro- 
duced it  was  necessary  that  we  should  consider  the  value 
of  the  object  which  has  been  in  dispute.    The  object,  I 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


249 


maintain,  has  been  good.  Then  comes  the  question  whether 
or  no  the  bill  will  be  fairly  paid — whether  they  who  have 
spent  the  money  will  set  about  that  disagreeable  task  of 
settling  the  account  with  a  true  purpose  and  an  honest 
energy.  And  this  question  splits  itself  into  two  parts. 
Will  the  Americans  honestly  wish  to  pay  the  bill;  and  if 
they  do  so  wish,  will  they  have  the  power  to  pay  it?  Again 
that  last  question  must  be  once  more  divided.  Will  they 
have  the  power  to  pay,  as  regards  the  actual  possession  of 
the  means,  and  if  possessing  them,  will  they  have  the  power 
of  access  to  those  means? 

The  nation  has  obtained  for  itself  an  evil  name  for  repu- 
diation. We  all  'know  that  Pennsylvania  behaved  badly 
about  her  money  affairs,  although  she  did  at  last  pay  her 
debts.  We  all  know  that  Mississippi  has  behaved  very 
badly  about  her  money  affairs,  and  has  never  paid  her 
debts,  nor  does  she  intend  to  pay  them.  And,  which  is 
worse  than  this,  for  it  applies  to  the  nation  generally  and 
not  to  individual  States,  we  all  know  that  it  was  made  a  mat- 
ter of  boast  in  the  States  that  in  the  event  of  a  war  with  Eng- 
land the  enormous  amount  of  property  held  by  Englishmen 
in  the  States  should  be  confiscated.  That  boast  was  espe- 
cially made  in  the  mercantile  City  of  New  York;  and 
when  the  matter  was  discussed  it  seemed  as  though  no 
American  realized  the  iniquity  of  such  a  threat.  It  was 
not  apparently  understood  that  such  a  confiscation  on 
account  of  a  war  would  be  an  act  of  national  robbery  jus- 
tified simply  by  the  fact  that  the  power  of  committing  it 
would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  robbers.  Confiscatioi^  of  so 
large  an  amount  of  wealth  would  be  a  smart  thing,  and 
men  did  not  seem  to  perceive  that  any  disgrace  would  at- 
tach to  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  at  large.  I  am  very 
anxious  not  to  speak  harsh  words  of  the  Americans;  but 
when  questions  arise  as  to  pecuniary  arrangements,  I  find 
myself  forced  to  acknowledge  that  great  precaution  is  at 
any  rate  necessary. 

But,  nevertheless,  I  am  not  sure  that  we  shall  be  fair  if 
we  allow  ourselves  to  argue  as  to  the  national  purpose  in 
this  matter  from  such  individual  instances  of  dishonesty  as 
those  which  I  have  mentioned.  I  do  not  think  it  is  to  be 
presumed  that  the  United  States  as  a  nation  will  repudiate 
its  debts  because  two  separate  States  may  have  been  guilty 
of  repudiation.   Nor  am  I  disposed  to  judge  of  the  honesty 


250 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


of  the  people  generally  from  the  dishonest  threatenings  of 
New  York,  made  at  a  moment  in  which  a  war  with  England 
was  considered  imminent.  I  do  believe  that  the  nation, 
as  a  nation,  will  be  as  ready  to  pay  for  the  war  as  it  has 
been  ready  to  carry  on  the  war.  That  "  ignorant  impatience 
of  taxation,"  to  which  it  is  supposed  that  we  Britons  are 
subject,  has  not  been  a  complaint  rife  among  the  Americans 
generally.  We,  in  England,  are  inclined  to  believe  that 
hitherto  they  have  known  nothing  of  the  merits  and  demerits 
of  taxation,  and  have  felt  none  of  its  annoyances,  because 
their  entire  national  expenditure  has  been  defrayed  by  light 
custom  duties ;  but  the  levies  made  in  the  separate  States 
for  State  purposes,  or  chiefly  for  municipal  purposes,  have 
been  very  heavy.  They  are,  however,  collected  easily,  and, 
as  far  as  I  am  aware,  without  any  display  of  ignorant  impa- 
tience. Indeed,  an  American  is  rarely  impatient  of  any 
ordained  law.  Whether  he  be  told  to  do  this,  or  to  pay  for 
that,  or  to  abstain  from  the  other,  he  does  do  and  pay  and 
abstain  without  grumbling,  provided  that  he  has  had  a  hand 
in  voting  for  those  who  made  the  law  and  for  those  who 
carry  out  the  law.  The  people  generally  have,  I  think, 
recognized  the  fact  that  they  will  have  to  put  their  necks 
beneath  the  yoke,  as  the  peoples  of  other  nations  have  put 
theirs,  and  support  the  weight  of  a  great  national  debt. 
When  the  time  comes  for  the  struggle,  for  the  first  uphill 
heaving  against  the  terrible  load  which  they  will  henceforth 
have  to  drag  with  them  in  their  career,  I  think  it  will  be 
found  that  they  are  not  ill  inclined  to  put  their  shoulders  to 
the  work. 

Then  as  to  their  power  of  paying  the  bill !  We  are  told 
that  the  wealth  of  a  nation  consists  in  its  labor,  and  that 
that  nation  is  the  most  wealthy  which  can  turn  out  of  hand 
the  greatest  amount  of  work.  If  this  be  so,  the  American 
States  must  form  a  very  wealthy  nation,  and  as  such  be  able 
to  support  a  very  heavy  burden.  'No  one,  I  presume,  doubts 
that  that  nation  which  works  the  most,  or  works  rather  to 
the  best  effect,  is  the  richest.  On  this  account  England  is 
richer  than  other  countries,  and  is  able  to  bear,  almost  with- 
out the  sign  of  an  effort,  a  burden  which  would  crush  any 
other  land.  But  of  this  wealth  the  States  own  almost  as 
much  as  Great  Britain  owns.  The  population  of  the  North- 
ern States  is  industrious,  ambitious  of  wealth,  and  capable 
of  work  as  is  our  population.    It  possesses,  or  is  possessed 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


251 


by,  that  restless  longing  for  labor  which  creates  wealth 
almost  unconsciously.  Whether  this  man  be  rich  or  be  a 
bankrupt,  whether  the  bankers  of  that  city  fail  or  make  their 
millions,  the  creative  energies  of  the  American  people  will 
not  become  dull.  Idleness  is  impossible  to  them,  and  there- 
fore poverty  is  impossible.  Industry  and  intellect  together 
will  always  produce  wealth  ;  and  neither  industry  nor  intellect 
is  ever  wanting  to  an  American.  They  are  the  two  gifts 
with  which  the  fairy  has  endowed  him.  When  she  shall  have 
added  honesty  as  a  third,  the  tax-gatherer  can  desire  no 
better  country  in  which  to  exercise  his  calling. 

I  cannot  myself  think  that  all  the  millions  that  are  being 
spent  would  weigh  upon  the  country  with  much  oppression, 
if  the  weight  were  once  properly  placed  upon  the  muscles 
that  will  have  to  bear  it.  The  difficulty  will  be  in  the 
placing  of  the  weight.  It  has,  I  know,  been  argued  that 
the  circumstances  under  which  our  national  debt  has  ex- 
tended itself  to  its  present  magnificent  dimensions  cannot 
be  quoted  as  parallel  to  those  of  the  present  American 
debt,  because  we,  while  we  were  creating  the  debt,  were  tax- 
ing ourselves  very  heavily,  whereas  the  Americans  have  gone 
ahead  with  the  creation  of  their  debt  before  they  have  levied 
a  shilling  on  themselves  toward  the  payment  of  those  ex- 
penses for  which  the  debt  has  been  encountered.  But  this 
argument,  even  if  it  were  true  in  its  gist,  goes  no  way  toward 
proving  that  the  Americans  will  be  unable  to  pay.  The 
population  of  the  present  free-soil  States  is  above  eighteen 
millions;  that  of  the  States  which  will  probably  belong  to 
the  Union  if  secession  be  accomplished  is  about  twenty-two 
millions.  At  a  time  when  our  debt  had  amounted  to  six 
hundred  millions  sterling  we  had  no  population  such  as  that 
to  bear  the  burden.  It  may  be  said  that  we  had  more  amassed 
wealth  than  they  have.  But  I  take  it  that  the  amassed  wealth 
of  any  country  can  go  but  a  very  little  way  in  defraying  the 
wants  or  in  paying  the  debts  of  a  people.  We  again  come 
back  to  the  old  maxim,  that  the  labor  of  a  country  is  its 
wealth ;  and  that  a  country  will  be  rich  or  poor  in  accord- 
ance with  the  intellectual  industry  of  its  people. 

But  the  argument  drawn  from  that  comparison  between 
our  own  conduct  when  we  were  creating  our  debt,  and  the 
conduct  of  the  Americans  while  they  have  been  creating 
their  debt — during  the  twelve  months  from  April  1,  1861,  to 
March  31,  1862,  let  us  say — is  hardly  a  fair  argument.  We, 


252 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


at  any  rate,  knew  how  to  tax  ourselves — if  only  the  taxes 
might  be  forthcoming.  We  were  already  well  used  to  the 
work;  and  a  minister  with  a  willing  House  of  Commons 
had  all  his  material  ready  to  his  hand.  It  has  not  been  so 
in  the  United  States.  The  difficulty  has  not  been  with  the 
people  who  should  pay  the  taxes,  but  with  the  minister  and 
the  Congress  which  did  not  know  how  to  levy  them.  Cer- 
tainly not  as  yet  have  those  who  are  now  criticising  the 
doings  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  a  right  to  say  that  the 
American  people  are  unwilling  to  make  personal  sacrifices 
for  the  carrying  out  of  this  war.  No  sign  has  as  yet  been 
shown  of  an  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  be 
taxed.  But  wherever  a  sign  could  be  given,  it  has  been 
given  on  the  other  side.  The  separate  States  have  taxed 
themselves  very  heavily  for  the  support  of  the  families  of 
the  absent  soldiers.  The  extra  allowances  made  to  maimed 
men,  amounting  generally  to  twenty-four  shillings  a  month, 
have  been  paid  by  the  States  themselves,  and  have  been  paid 
almost  with  too  much  alacrity. 

I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Americans  will  show  no  un- 
willingness to  pay  the  amount  of  taxation  which  must  be 
exacted  from  them ;  and  I  also  think  that  as  regards  their 
actual  means  they  will  have  the  power  to  pay  it.  But  as 
regards  their  power  of  obtaining  access  to  those  means,  I 
must  confess  that  I  see  many  difficulties  in  their  way. 
In  the  first  place  they  have  no  financier,  no  man  who  by 
naturaf  aptitude  and  by  long-continued  contact  with  great 
questions  of  finance,  has  enabled  himself  to  handle  the 
money  affairs  of  a  nation  with  a  master's  hand.  In  saying 
this  I  do  not  intend  to  impute  any  blame  to  Mr.  Chase,  the 
present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Of  his  ability  to  do  the 
work  properly  had  he  received  the  proper  training,  I  am 
not  able  to  judge.  It  is  not  that  Mr.  Chase  is  incapable. 
He  may  be  capable  or  incapable.  But  it  is  that  he  has  not 
had  the  education  of  a  national  financier,  and  that  he  has 
no  one  at  his  elbow  to  help  him  who  has  had  that  ad- 
vantage. 

And  here  we  are  again  brought  to  that  general  absence 
of  statecraft  which  has  been  the  result  of  the  American 
system  of  government.  I  am.  not  aware  that  our  Chancel- 
lors of  the  Exchequer  have  in  late  years  always  been  great 
masters  of  finance ;  but  they  have  at  any  rate  been  among 
money  men  and  money  matters,  and  have  had  financiers  at 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


253 


their  elbows  if  they  have  not  deserved  the  name  themselves. 

The  very  fact  that  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  sits  in 
the  House  of  Commons  and  is  forced  in  that  House  to 
answer  all  questions  on  the  subject  of  finance,  renders  it  im- 
possible that  he  should  be  ignorant  of  the  rudiments  of  the 
science.  If  you  put  a  white  cap  on  a  man's  head  and  place 
him  in  a  kitchen,  he  will  soon  learn  to  be  a  cook.  But  he 
will  never  be  made  a  cook  by  standing  in  the  dining-room 
and  seeing  the  dishes  as  they  are  brought  up.  The  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  is  our  cook;  and  the  House  of 
Commons,  not  the  Treasury  chambers,  is  his  kitchen.  Let 
the  Secretary  of  the  United  States  Treasury  sit  in  the 
House  of  Representatives !  He  would  learn  more  there  by 
contest  with  opposing  members  than  he  can  do  by  any 
amount  of  study  in  his  own  chamber. 

But  the  House  of  Representatives  itself  has  not  as  yet 
learned  its  own  lesson  with  reference  to  taxation.  When  I 
say  that  the  United  States  are  in  want  of  a  financier,  I  do 
not  mean  that  the  deficiency  rests  entirely  with  Mr.  Chase. 
This  necessity  for  taxation,  and  for  taxation  at  so  tremen- 
dous a  rate,  has  come  suddenly,  and  has  found  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  unprepared  for  such  work.  To  us, 
as  I  conceive,  the  science  of  taxation,  in  which  we  certainly 
ought  to  be  great,  has  come  gradually.  We  have  learned 
by  slow  lessons  what  taxes  will  be  productive,  under  what 
circumstances  they  will  be  most  productive,  and  at  what 
point  they  will  be  made  unproductive  by  their  own  weight. 
We  have  learned  what  taxes  may  be  levied  so  as  to  afford 
funds  themselves,  without  injuring  the  proceeds  of  other 
taxes,  and  we  know  what  taxes  should  be  eschewed  as  being 
specially  oppressive  to  the  general  industry  and  injurious 
to  the  well-being  of  the  nation.  This  has  come  of  much 
practice,  and  even  we,  with  all  our  experience,  have  even 
got  something  to  learn.  But  the  public  men  in  the  States 
who  are  now  devoting  themselves  to  this  matter  of  taxing 
the  people  have,  as  yet,  no  such  experience.  That  they 
have  inclination  enough  for  the  work  is,  I  think,  sufficiently 
demonstrated  by  the  national  tax  bill,  the  wording  of  which 
is  now  before  me,  and  which  will  have  been  passed  into  law 
before  this  volume  can  be  published.  It  contains  a  list  of 
every  taxable  article  on  the  earth  or  under  the  earth.  A 
more  sweeping  catalogue  of  taxation  was  probably  never 
put  forth.  The  Americans,  it  has  been  said  by  some  of  us, 
VOL.  n. — 22 


254 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


have  sliown  no  disposition  to  tax  themselves  for  this  war; 
but  before  the  war  has  as  yet  been  well  twelve  months  in 
operation,  a  bill  has  come  out  with  a  list  of  taxation  so 
oppressive  that  it  must,  as  regards  many  of  its  items,  act 
against  itself  and  cut  its  own  throat.  It  will  produce  ter- 
rible fraud  in  its  evasion,  and  create  an  army  of  excise  offi- 
cers who  will  be  as  locusts  over  the  face  of  the  country. 
Taxes  are  to  be  laid  on  articles  which  I  should  have  said 
that  universal  consent  had  declared  to  be  unfit  for  taxation. 
Salt,  soap,  candles,  oil,  and  other  burning  fluids,  gas,  pins, 
paper,  ink,  and  leather,  are  to  be  taxed.  It  was  at  first 
proposed  that  wheat  flour  should  be  taxed,  but  that  item 
has,  I  believe,  been  struck  out  of  the  bill  in  its  passage 
through  the  House.  All  articles  manufactured  of  cotton, 
wool,  silk,  worsted,  flax,  hemp,  jute.  India-rubber,  gutta- 
percha, wood  (?),  glass,  pottery  wares,  leather,  paper,  iron, 
steel,  lead,  tin,  copper,  zinc,  brass,  gold  and  silver,  horn, 
ivory,  bone,  bristles,  wholly  or  in  part,  or  of  other  materials, 
are  to  be  taxed  —  provided  always  that  books,  magazines, 
pamphlets,  newspapers,  and  reviews  shall  not  be  regarded 
as  manufactures.  It  will  be  said  that  the  amount  of  taxa- 
tion to  be  levied  on  the  immense  number  of  manufactured 
articles  which  must  be  included  in  this  list  will  be  light, 
the  tax  itself  being  only  3  per  cent,  ad  valorem.  But  with 
reference  to  every  article,  there  will  be  the  necessity  of  col- 
lecting this  3  per  cent.  As  regards  each  article  that  is 
manufactured,  some  government  official  must  interfere  to 
appraise  its  value  and  to  levy  the  tax.  Who  shall  declare 
the  value  of  a  barrel  of  wooden  nutmegs;  or  how  shall  the 
excise  officer  get  his  tax  from  every  cobbler's  stall  in  the 
country  ?  And  then  tradesmen  are  to  pay  licenses  for  their 
trades  —  a  confectioner  21.,  a  tallow-chandler  2/.,  a  horse 
dealer  21.  Every  man  whose  business  it  is  to  sell  horses 
shall  be  a  horse  dealer.  True.  But  who  shall  say  whether 
or  no  it  be  a  man's  business  to  sell  horses  ?  An  apothecary 
2/.,  a  photographer  2/.,  a  peddler  iL,  SL,  21.,  or  11.,  accord- 
ing to  his  mode  of  traveling.  But  if  the  gross  receipts  of 
any  of  the  confectioners,  tallow-chandlers,  horse  dealers, 
apothecaries,  photographers,  peddlers,  or  the  like  do  not 
exceed  2001.  a  year,  then  such  tradesmen  shall  not  be  re- 
quired to  pay  for  any  license  at  all.  Surely  such  a  pro- 
viso can  only  have  been  inserted  with  the  express  view  of 
creating  fraud  and  ill  blood!    But  the  greatest  audacity 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


255 


has,  I  think,  been  shown  in  the  levying  of  personal  taxes, — 
such  taxes  as  have  been  held  to  be  peculiarly  disagreeable 
among  us,  and  have  specially  brought  down  upon  us  the 
contempt  of  lightly-taxed  people,  who,  like  the  Americans, 
have  known  nothing  of  domestic  interference.  Carriages 
are  to  be  taxed,  as  they  are  with  us.  Pianos  also  are  to 
be  taxed,  and  plate.  It  is  not  signified  by  this  clause  that 
such  articles  shall  pay  a  tax,  once  for  all,  while  in  the 
maker's  hands,  which  tax  would  no  doubt  fall  on  the  future 
owner  of  such  piano  or  plate;  in  such  case  the  owner  would 
pay,  but  would  pay  without  any  personal  contact  with  the 
tax-gatherer.  But  every  owner  of  a  piano  or  of  plate  is  to 
pay  annually  according  to  the  value  of  the  articles  he  owns. 
But  perhaps  the  most  audacious  of  all  the  proposed  taxes 
is  that  on  watches.  Every  owner  of  a  watch  is  to  pay  4s. 
a  year  for  a  gold  watch  and  2s.  a  year  for  a  silver  watch ! 
The  American  tax-gatherers  will  not  like  to  be  cheated. 
They  will  be  very  keen  in  searching  for  watches.  But  who 
can  say  whether  they  or  the  carriers  of  watches  will  have 
the  best  of  it  in  such  a  hunt.  The  tax-gatherers  will  be  as 
hounds  ever  at  work  on  a  cold  scent.  They  will  now  be 
hot  and  angry,  and  then  dull  and  disheartened.  But  the 
carriers  of  watches  who  do  not  choose  to  pay  will  generally, 
one  may  predict,  be  able  to  make  their  points  good. 

With  such  a  tax  bill — which  I  believe  came  into  action 
on  the  1st  of  May,  1  862 — the  Americans  are  not  fairly  open 
to  the  charge  of  being  unwilling  to  tax  themselves.  They 
have  avoided  none  of  the  irritating  annoyances  of  taxation, 
as  also  they  have  not  avoided,  or  attempted  to  lighten  for 
themselves,  the  dead  weight  of  the  burden.  •The  dead 
weight  they  are  right  to  endure  without  flinching ;  but  their 
mode  of  laying  it  on  their  own  backs  justifies  me,  I  think, 
in  saying  that  they  do  not  yet  know  how  to  obtain  access 
to  their  own  means.  But  this  bill  applies  simply  to  mat- 
ters of  excise.  As  I  have  said  before,  Congress,  which  has 
hitherto  supported  the  government  by  custom  duties,  has 
also  the  power  of  levjdng  excise  duties,  and  now,  in  its  first 
session  since  the  commencement  of  the  war,  has  begun  to 
use  that  power  without  much  hesitation  or  bashfulness.  As 
regards  their  taxes  levied  at  the  custom-house,  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  has  always  been  inclined  to  high 
duties,  with  the  view  of  protecting  the  internal  trade  and 
manufactures  of  the  country.    The  amount  required  for 


25G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


national  expenses  was  easily  obtained ;  and  these  duties 
were  not  regulated,  as  I  think,  so  much  with  a  view  to  the 
amount  which  might  be  collected  as  to  that  of  the  effect 
which  the  tax  might  have  in  fostering  native  industry.  That, 
if  I  understand  it,  was  the  meaning  of  Mr.  Morrill's  bill, 
which  was  passed  immediately  on  the  secession  of  the  South- 
ern members  of  Congress,  and  which  instantly  enhanced  the 
price  of  all  foreign  manufactured  goods  in  the  States.  But 
now  the  desire  for  protection,  simply  as  protection,  has  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  acknowledged  necessity  for  revenue ; 
and  the  only  object  to  be  recognized  in  the  arrangement  of 
the  custom  duties  is  the  collection  of  the  greatest  number 
of  dollars.  This  is  fair  enough.  If  the  country  can,  at 
such  a  crisis,  raise  a  better  revenue  by  claiming  a  shilling 
a  pound  on  coffee  than  it  can  by  claiming  sixpence,  the  shil- 
ling may  be  wisely  claimed,  even  though  many  may  thus  be 
prohibited  from  the  use  of  coffee.  But  then  comes  the  great 
question,  What  duty  will  really  give  the  greatest  product  ? 
At  what  rate  shall  we  tax  coffee  so  as  to  get  at  the  people's 
money  ?  If  it  be  so  taxed  that  people  won't  use  it,  the  tax 
cuts  its  own  throat.  There  is  some  point  at  which  the  tax 
will  be  most  productive  ;  and  also  there  is  a  point  up  to 
which  the  tax  will  not  operate  to  the  serious  injury  of  the 
trade.  Without  the  knowledge  which  should  indicate  these 
points,  a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  with  his  myrmidons, 
would  be  groping  in  the  dark.  As  far  as  we  can  yet  see, 
there  is  not  much  of  such  knowledge  either  in  the  Treasury 
chambers  or  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington. 

But  the  greatest  difficulty  which  the  States  will  feel  in 
obtaining*  access  to  their  own  means  of  taxation  is  that 
which  is  created  by  the  Constitution  itself,  and  to  which  I 
alluded  when  speaking  of  the  taxing  powers  which  the  Con- 
stitution had  given  to  Congress  and  those  which  it  had  de- 
nied to  Congress.  As  to  custom  duties  and  excise  duties, 
Congress  can  do  what  it  pleases,  as  can  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. But  Congress  cannot  levy  direct  taxation  according 
to  its  own  judgment.  In  those  matters  of  customs  and 
excise  Congress  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  will 
probably  make  many  blunders  ;  but,  having  the  power,  they 
will  blunder  through,  and  the  money  will  be  collected.  But 
direct  taxation  in  an  available  shape  is  beyond  the  power 
of  Congress  under  the  existing  rule  of  the  Constitution. 
No  income  tax,  for  instance,  can  be  laid  on  the  general  in- 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


25Y 


comes  of  the  United  States  that  shall  be  universal  through- 
out the  States.  An  income  tax  can  be  levied,  but  it  must 
be  levied  in  proportion  to  the  representation.  It  is  as 
though  our  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  collecting  an 
income  tax,  were  obliged  to  demand  the  same  amount  of 
contribution  from  the  town  of  Chester  as  from  the  town 
of  Liverpool,  because  both  Chester  and  Liverpool  return 
two  members  to  Parliament.  In  fitting  his  tax  to  the  ca- 
pacity of  Chester,  he  would  be  forced  to  allow  Liverpool 
to  escape  unscathed.  No  skill  in  money  matters  on  the 
part  of  the  Treasury  Secretary,  and  no  aptness  for  finance 
on  the  part  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  can  avail 
here.  The  Constitution  must  apparently  be  altered  before 
any  serviceable  resort  can  be  had  to  direct  taxation.  And 
yet,  at  such  an  emergency  as  that  now  existing,  direct  tax- 
ation would  probably  give  more  ready  assistance  than  can 
be  afforded  either  by  the  customs  or  the  excise. 

It  has  been  stated  to  me  that  this  difficulty  in  the  way  of 
direct  taxation  can  be  overcome  without  any  change  in  the 
Constitution.  Congress  could  only  levy  from  Rhode  Island 
the  same  amount  of  income  tax  that  it  might  levy  from 
Iowa  ;  but  it  will  be  competent  to  the  legislature  of  Rhode 
Island  itself  to  levy  what  income  tax  it  may  please  on  itself, 
and  to  devote  the  proceeds  to  National  or  Federal  purposes. 
Rhode  Island  may  do  so,  and  so  may  Massachusetts,  New 
York,  Connecticut,  and  the  other  rich  Atlantic  States.  They 
may  tax  themselves  according  to  their  riches,  while  Iowa, 
Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  such  Hke  States  are  taxing  them- 
selves according  to  their  poverty.  I  cannot  myself  think 
that  it  would  be  well  to  trust  to  the  generosity  of  the  sep- 
arate States  for  the  finances  needed  by  the  national  govern- 
ment. We  should  not  willingly  trust  to  Yorkshire  or  Sussex 
to  give  us  their  contributions  to  the  national  income,  espe- 
cially if  Yorkshire  and  Sussex  had  small  Houses  of  Com- 
mons of  their  own  in  which  that  question  of  giving  might 
be  debated.  It  may  be  very  well  for  Rhode  Island  or  New 
York  to  be  patriotic  1  But  what  shall  be  done  with  any 
State  that  declines  to  evince  such  patriotism  ?  The  legis- 
latures of  the  diff'erent  States  may  be  invited  to  impose  a 
tax  of  five  per  cent,  on  all  incomes  in  each  State  ;  but  what 
will  be  done  if  Pennsylvania,  for  instance,  should  decline, 
or  Illinois  should  hesitate  ?  What  if  the  legislature  of 
VOL.  II.— 22* 


258 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


Massachusetts  should  offer  six  per  cent.,  or  that  of  New 
Jersey  decide  that  four  per  cent,  was  sufficient  ?  For  awhile 
the  arrangement  might  possibly  be  made  to  answer  the  de- 
sired purpose.  During  the  first  ebullition  of  high  feeling 
the  different  States  concerned  might  possibly  vote  the 
amount  of  taxes  required  for  Federal  purposes.  I  fear  it 
would  not  be  so,  but  we  may  allow  that  the  chance  is  on  the 
card.  But  it  is  not  conceivable  that  such  an  arrangement' 
should  be  continued  when,  after  a  year  or  two,  men  came  to 
talk  over  the  war  with  calmer  feelings  and  a  more  critical 
judgment.  The  State  legislatures  would  become  inquisitive, 
opinionative,  and  probably  factious.  They  would  be  un- 
willing to  act,  in  so  great  a  matter,  under  the  dictation  of 
the  Federal  Congress ;  and,  by  degrees,  one  and  then  an- 
other would  decline  to  give  its  aid  to  the  central  govern- 
ment. However  broadly  the  acknowledgment  may  have 
been  made  that  the  levying  of  direct  taxes  was  necessary 
for  the  nation,  each  State  would  be  tempted  to  argue  that 
a  wrong  mode  and  a  wrong  rate  of  levying  had  been  adopted, 
and  words  would  be  forthcoming  instead  of  money.  A  resort 
to  such  a  mode  of  taxation  would  be  a  bad  security  for 
government  stock. 

All  matters  of  taxation,  moreover,  should  be  free  from 
any  taint  of  generosity.  A  man  who  should  attempt  to 
lessen  the  burdens  of  his  country  by  gifts  of  money  to  its 
exchequer  would  be  laying  his  country  under  an  obligation 
for  which  his  country  would  not  thank  him.  The  gifts  here 
would  be  from  States,  and  not  from  individuals;  but  the 
principle  would  be  the  same.  I  cannot  imagine  that  the 
United  States  government  would  be  willing  to  owe  its 
revenue  to  the  good-will  of  different  States,  or  its  want 
of  revenue  to  their  caprice.  If  under  such  an  arrangement 
the  Western  States  were  to  decline  to  vote  the  quota  of 
income  tax  or  property  tax  to  which  the  Eastern  States 
had  agreed — and  in  all  probability  they  would  decline  — 
they  would  in  fact  be  seceding.  They  would  thus  secede 
from  the  burdens  of  their  general  country;  but  in  such 
event  no  one  could  accuse  such  States  of  unconstitutional 
secession. 

It  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  with  precision  what  is  the 
present  amount  of  debt  due  by  the  United  States ;  nor 
probably  has  any  tolerably  accurate  guess  been  yet  given 
of  the  amount  to  which  it  may  be  extended  during  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


259 


present  war.  A  statement  made  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives by  Mr.  Spaulding,  a  member  of  the  Committee 
of  Ways  and  Means,  on  the  29th  of  January  last,  may  per- 
haps be  taken  as  giving  as  trustworthy  information  as  any 
that  can  be  obtained.  I  have  changed  Mr.  Spaulding's 
figures  from  dollars  into  pounds,  that  they  may  be  more 
readily  understood  by  English  readers  : — 


There  was  due  up  to  July  1,  1861  .  .  .  £18,173,566 

added  in  July  a,nd  August  .  .  5,379,357 

borrowed  ia  August      .  .  .  10,000,000 

borrowed  in  October  .  .  10,000,000 

borrowed  in  November  .  .  .  10,000,000 

amount  of  Treasury  Demand  Notes  issued  7,800,000 

£61,352,923 


This  was  the  amount  of  the  debt  due  up  to  January  15th, 
1862.  Mr.  Spaulding  then  calculates  that  the  sum  required 
to  carry  on  the  government  up  to  July  1st,  1862,  will  be 
68,647, on/.  And  that  a  further  sum  of  110,000,000/.  will 
be  wanted  on  or  before  the  1st  of  July,  1863.  Thus  the 
debt  at  that  latter  date  would  stand  as  follows : — 


Amount  of  debt  up  to  January,  1862        .  .  £61,352,928 

Added  by  July  Ist,  1862  .  .  .  68,647,077 

Again  added  by  July  1st,  1863       .  .  .  110,000,000 


£240,000,000 


The  first  of  these  items  may  no  doubt  be  taken  as  ac- 
curate. The  second  has  probably  been  founded  on  facts 
which  leave  little  doubt  as  to  its  substantial  truth.  The 
third,  which  professes  to  give  the  proposed  expense  of  the 
war  for  the  forthcoming  year,  viz.,  from  July  1st,  1862,  to 
June  30th,  1863,  must  necessarily  have  been  obtained  by  a 
very  loose  estimate.  No  one  can  say  what  may  be  the  con- 
dition of  the  country  daring  the  next  year  —  whether  the 
war  may  then  be  raging  throughout  the  Southern  States,  or 
whether  the  war  may  not  have  ceased  altogether.  The 
North  knows  little  or  nothing  of  the  capacity  of  the  South. 
How  little  it  knows  may  be  surmised  from  the  fact  that  the 
whole  Southern  army  of  Virginia  retreated  from  their  posi- 
tion at  Manassas  before  the  Northern  generals  knew  that 
they  were  moving ;  and  that  when  they  were  gone  no  word 


260 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


whatever  was  left  of  their  numbers,  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  Northern  government  is  even  yet  able  to  make  any- 
probable  conjecture  as  to  the  number  of  troops  which  the 
Southern  Confederacy  is  maintaining;  and  if  this  be  so,  they 
can  certainly  make  no  trustworthy  estimates  as  to  their  own 
expenses  for  the  ensuing  year. 

Two  hundred  and  forty  millions  is,  however,  the  sum 
named  by  a  gentleman  presumed  to  be  conversant  with  the 
matter,  as  the  amount  of  debt  which  may  be  expected  by 
midsummer,  18G3 ;  and  if  the  war  be  continued  till  then,  it 
will  probably  be  found  that  he  has  not  exceeded  the  mark. 
It  is  right,  however,  to  state  that  Mr.  Chase  in  his  estimate 
does  not  rate  the  figures  so  high.  He  has  given  it  as  his 
opinion  that  the  debt  will  be  about  one  hundred  and  four 
millions  in  July,  1862,  and  one  hundred  and  eighty  millions 
in  July,  1863.  As  to  the  first  amount,  with  reference  to 
which  a  tolerably  accurate  calculation  may  probably  be 
made,  I  am  inclined  to  prefer  the  estimate  as  given  by  the 
member  of  the  committee ;  and  as  to  the  other,  which  hardly, 
as  I  think,  admits  of  any  calculation,  his  calculation  is  at 
any  rate  as  good  as  that  made  in  the  Treasury. 

But  it  is  the  immediate  want  of  funds,  and  not  the  pro- 
spective debt  of  the  country,  which  is  now  doing  the  dam- 
nge.  In  this  opinion  Mr.  Chase  will  probably  agree  with 
me  ;  but  readers  on  this  side  of  the  water  will  receive  what  • 
I  say  with  a  smile.  Such  a  state  of  affairs  is  certainly  one 
that  has  not  uncommonly  been  reached  by  financiers  ;  it  has 
also  often  been  experienced  by  gentlemen  in  the  manage- 
ment of  their  private  affairs.  It  has  been  common  in  Ire- 
land, and  in  London  has  created  the  wealth  of  the  pawn- 
brokers. In  the  States  at  the  present  time  the  government 
is  very  much  in  this  condition.  The  prospective  wealth  of 
the  country  is  almost  unbounded,  but  there  is  great  dif- 
ficulty in  persuading  any  pawnbroker  to  advance  money  on 
the  pledge.  In  February  last  Mr.  Chase  was  driven  to 
obtain  the  sanction  of  the  legislature  for  paying  the  national 
creditors  by  bills  drawn  at  twelve  months'  date,  and  bearing 
6  per  cent,  interest.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  tailor  who 
calls  with  his  little  account,  and  draws  on  his  insolvent 
debtor  at  ninety  days.  If  the  insolvent  debtor  be  not  utterly 
gone  as  regards  solvency  he  will  take  up  the  bill  when  due, 
even  though  he  may  not  be  able  to  pay  a  simple  debt.  But, 
then,  if  he  be  utterly  insolvent,  he  can  do  neither  the  one 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


261 


nor  the  other !  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  when  he 
asked  for  permission  to  accept  these  bills — or  to  issue  these 
certiticates,  as  he  calls  them  —  acknowledged  to  pressing 
debts  of  over  five  millions  sterling  which  he  could  not  pay, 
and  to  further  debts  of  eight  millions  which  he  could  not 
pay,  but  which  he  termed  floating ;  debts,  if  I  understand 
him,  which  were  not  as  yet  quite  pressing.  Now  I  imagine 
that  to  be  a  lamentable  condition  for  any  Chancellor  of  an 
Exchequer — especially  as  a  confession  is  at  the  same  time 
made  that  no  advantageous  borrowing  is  to  be  done  under 
the  existing  circumstances.  When  a  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer confesses  that  he  cannot  borrow  on  advantageous 
terms,  the  terms  within  his  reach  must  be  very  bad  in- 
deed. This  position  is  indeed  a  sad  one,  and  at  any  rate 
justifies  me  in  stating  that  the  immediate  want  of  funds  is 
severely  felt. 

But  the  very  arguments  which  have  been  used  to  prove 
that  the  country  will  be  ultimately  crushed  by  the  debt,  are 
those  which  I  should  use  to  prove  that  it  will  not  be  crushed. 
A  comparison  has  more  than  once  been  made  between  the 
manner  in  which  our  debt  was  made  and  that  in  which  the 
debt  of  the  United  States  is  now  being  created ;  and  the 
great  point  raised  in  our  favor  is,  that  while  we  were  bor- 
rowing money  we  were  also  taxing  ourselves,  and  that  we 
raised  as  much  by  taxes  as  we  did  by  loans.  But  it  is  too 
early  in  the  day  to  deny  to  the  Americans  the  credit  which 
we  thus  take  to  ourselves.  We  were  a  tax-paying  nation 
when  we  commenced  those  wars  which  made  our  great  loans 
necessary,  and  only  went  on  in  that  practice  which  was 
habitual  to  us.  I  do  not  think  that  the  Americans  could 
have  taxed  themselves  with  greater  alacrity  than  they  have 
shown.  Let  us  wait,  at  any  rate,  till  they  shall  have  had 
time  for  the  operation,  before  we  blame  them  for  not  mak- 
ing it.  It  is  then  argued  that  we  in  England  did  not  bor- 
row nearly  so  fast  as  they  have  borrowed  in  the  States. 
That  is  true.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  dimen- 
sions and  proportions  of  wars  now  are  infinitely  greater  than 
they  were  when  we  began  to  borrow.  Does  any  one  im- 
agine that  we  would  not  have  borrowed  faster,  if  by  faster 
borrowing  we  could  have  closed  the  war  more  speedily? 
Things  go  faster  now  than  they  did  then.  Borrowing  for 
the  sake  of  a  war  may  be  a  bad  thing  to  do,  as  also  it  may 
be  a  good  thing ;  but  if  it  be  done  at  all,  it  should  be  so 


262 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


done  as  to  bring  the  war  to  the  end  with  what  greatest  dis- 
patch may  be  possible. 

The  only  fair  comparison,  as  it  seems  to  me,  which  can 
be  drawn  between  the  two  countries  with  reference  to  their 
debts,  and  the  condition  of  each  under  its  debt,  should  be 
made  to  depend  on  the  amount  of  the  debt  and  probable 
ability  of  the  country  to  bear  that  burden.  The  amount 
of  the  debt  must  be  calculated  by  the  interest  payable  on  it 
rather  than  by  the  figures  representing  the  actual  sum  due. 
If  we  debit  the  United  States  government  with  seven  per 
cent,  on  all  the  money  borrowed  by  them,  and  presume  that 
amount  to  have  reached  in  July,  1863,  the  sum  named  by 
Mr.  Spaulding,  they  will  then  have  loaded  themselves  with 
an  annual  charge  of  £16,800,000  sterling.  It  will  have 
been  an  immense  achievement  to  have  accomplished  in  so 
short  a  time,  but  it  will  by  no  means  equal  the  annual  sum 
with  which  we  are  charged.  And,  moreover,  the  compari- 
son will  have  been  made  in  a  manner  that  is  hardly  fair  to 
the  Americans.  We  pay  our  creditors  three  per  cent,  now 
that  we  have  arranged  our  affairs,  and  have  settled  down 
into  the  respectable  position  of  an  old  gentleman  whose  es- 
tates, though  deeply  mortgaged,  are  not  over  mortgaged. 
But  we  did  not  get  our  money  at  three  per  cent,  while  our 
wars  were  on  hand  and  there  yet  existed  some  doubt  as  to 
the  manner  in  which  they  might  be  terminated. 

This  attempt,  however,  at  guessing  what  may  be  the 
probable  amount  of  the  debt  at  the  close  of  the  war  is  ab- 
solutely futile.  "No  one  can  as  yet  conjecture  when  the  war 
may  be  over,  or  what  collateral  expenses  may  attend  its 
close.  It  may  be  the  case  that  the  government,  in  fixing 
some  boundary  between  the  future  United  States  and  the 
future  Southern  Confederacy,  will  be  called  on  to  advance 
a  very  large  sum  of  money  as  compensation  for  slaves  who 
shall  have  been  liberated  in  the  border  States,  or  have  been 
swept  down  South  into  the  cotton  regions  with  the  retreat- 
ing hordes  of  the  Southern  army.  The  total  of  the  bill 
cannot  be  reckoned  up  while  the  work  is  still  unfinished. 
But,  after  all,  that  question  as  to  the  amount  of  the  bill  is 
not  to  us  the  question  of  the  greatest  interest.  Whether 
the  debt  shall  amount  to  two,  or  three,  or  even  to  four  hun- 
dred millions  sterling  ;  whether  it  remain  fixed  at  its  pres- 
ent modest  dimensions,  or  swell  itself  out  to  the  magnificent 
proportions  of  our  British  debtj  will  the  resources  of  the 


THE  FINANCIAL  POSITION. 


2C3 


country  enable  it  to  bear  such  a  burden  ?  Will  it  be  found 
that  the  Americans  share  with  us  that  elastic  power  of  en- 
durance which  has  enabled  us  to  bear  a  weight  that  would 
have  ruined  any  other  people  of  the  same  number  ?  Have 
they  the  thews  and  muscles,  the  energy  and  endurance,  the 
povv'er  of  carrying  which  we  possess  ?  They  have  got  our 
blood  in  their  veins,  and  have  these  qualities  gone  witli  the 
blood  ?  It  is  of  little  avail  either  to  us  or  to  the  truth  that 
we  can  show  some  difference  between  our  position  and  their 
position  which  may  seem  to  be  in  our  favor.  They  doubt- 
less could  show  other  points  of  difference  on  the  other  side. 
With  us,  in  the  early  years  of  this  century,  it  was  a  contest 
for  life  and  death,  in  which  we  could  not  stop  to  count  the 
cost — in  which  we  believed  that  we  were  fighting  for  all  that 
we  cared  to  call  our  own,  and  in  which  we  were  resolved 
that  we  would  not  be  beaten  as  long  as  we  had  a  man  to 
fight  and  a  guinea  to  spend.  Fighting  in  this  mind  we  won. 
Had  we  fought  in  any  other  mind  I  think  I  may  say  that 
we  should  not  have  won.  To  the  Americans  of  the  North- 
ern States  this  also  is  a  contest  for  life  and  death.  I  will 
not  here  stay  to  argue  whether  this  need  have  been  so,  I 
think  they  are  right ;  but  this  at  least  must  be  accorded  to 
thera — that,  having  gone  into  this  matter  of  civil  war,  it 
behoves  them  to  finish  it  with  credit  to  themselves.  There 
are  many  Englishmen  who  think  that  we  were  wrong  to  un- 
dertake the  French  war;  but  there  is,  I  take  it,  no  English- 
man who  thinks  that  we  ought  to  have  allowed  ourselves  to 
be  beaten  when  we  had  undertaken  it.  To  the  Americans 
it  is  now  a  contest  of  life  and  death.  They  also  cannot  stop 
to  count  the  cost.  They  also  will  go  on  as  long  as  they 
have  a  dollar  to  spend  or  a  man  to  fight. 

It  appears  tliat  we  vrere  paying  fourteen  millions  a  year 
interest  on  our  national  debt  in  the  year  1796.  I  take  this 
statement  from  an  article  in  The  Times,  in  which  the  ques- 
tion of  the  finances  of  the  United  States  is  handled.  But 
our  population  in  1196  was  only  sixteen  millions.  I  esti- 
mate the  population  of  the  Northern  section  of  the  United 
States,  as  the  States  will  be  after  the  war,  at  twenty-two 
millions.  In  the  article  alluded  to,  these  Northern  Ameri- 
cans are  now  stated  to  be  twenty  millions.  If  then  we,  in 
1796,  could  pay  fourteen  millions  a  year  with  a  population 
of  sixteen  millions,  the  United  States,  with  a  population  of 
twenty  or  twenty-two  millions,  will  be  able  to  pay  the  six- 


2G4 


NOETH  AMERICA. 


teen  or  seventeen  millions  sterling  of  interest  which  will 
become  due  from  them,  if  their  circumstances  of  payment 
are  as  good  as  were  ours.  They  can  do  that,  and  more 
than  that,  if  they  have  the  same  means  per  man  as  we  had. 
And  as  the  means  per  man  resolves  itself  at  last  into  the 
labor  per  man,  it  may  be  said  that  they  can  pay  what  we 
could  pay,  if  they  can  and  will  work  as  hard  as  we  could 
and  did  work.  That  which  did  not  crush  us  will  not  crush 
them,  if  their  future  energy  be  equal  to  our  past  energy. 

And  on  this  question  of  energy  I  think  that  there  is  no  need 
for  doubt.  Taking  man  for  man  and  million  for  million,  the 
Americans  are  equal  to  the  English  in  intellect  and  indus- 
try. They  create  wealth,  at  any  rate,  as  fast  as  we  have 
done.  They  develop  their  resources,  and  open  out  the  cur- 
rents of  trade,  with  an  energy  equal  to  our  own.  They  are 
always  at  work — improving,  utilizing,  and  creating.  Aus- 
tria, as  I  take  it,  is  succumbing  to  monetary  difficulties,  not 
because  she-  has  been  extravagant,  but  because  she  has  been 
slow  at  progress;  because  it  has  been  the  work  of  her 
rulers  to  repress  rather  than  encourage  the  energies  of  her 
people  ;  because  she  does  not  improve,  utilize,  and  create. 
England  has  mastered  her  monetary  difficulties  because  the 
genius  of  her  government  and  her  people  has  been  exactly 
opposite  to  the  genius  of  Austria.  And  the  States  of 
America  will  master  their  money  difficulties,  because  they 
are  born  of  England,  and  are  not  born  of  Austria.  What  I 
Shall  our  eldest  child  become  bankrupt  in  its  first  trade  dif- 
ficulty ;  be  utterly  ruined  by  its  first  little  commercial  em- 
barrassment !  The  child  bears  much  too  strong  a  resem- 
blance to  its  parent  for  me  to  think  so. 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


265 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  POST-OFFICE. 

Any  Englislimau  or  Frenchman  residing  in  the  American 
States  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  inferiority  of  the 
post-office  arrangements  in  that  country  to  those  by  which 
they  are  accommodated  in  their  own  country.  I  have  not 
been  a  resident  in  the  country,  and.  as  a  traveler  might 
probably  have  passed  the  subject  without  special  remark, 
were  it  not  that  the  service  of  the  post-office  has  been  my 
own  profession  for  many  years.  I  could  therefore  hardly 
fail  to  observe  things  which  to  another  man  would  have 
been  of  no  material  moment.  At  first  I  was  inclined  to 
lean  heavily  in  my  judgment  upon  the  deficiencies  of  a  de- 
partment which  must  be  of  primary  importance  to  a  com- 
mercial nation.  It  seemed  that  among  a  people  so  intelli- 
gent, and  so  quick  in  all  enterprises  of  trade,  a  v/ell-arranged 
post-office  would  have  been  held  to  be  absolutely  necessary, 
and  that  all  difficulties  would  have  been  made  to  succumb 
in  their  efforts  to  put  that  establishment,  if  no  other,  upon 
a  proper  footing.  But  as  I  looked  into  the  matter,  and  in 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  the  post- 
office  learned  the  extent  of  the  difficulties  absolutely  exist- 
ing, I  began  to  think  that  a  very  great  deal  had  been  done, 
and  that  the  fault,  as  to  that  which  had  been  left  undone, 
rested  not  with  the  post-office  officials,  but  was  attributable 
partly  to  political  causes  altogether  outside  the  post-office, 
and  partly — perhaps  chiefly — to  the  nature  of  the  country 
itself. 

It  is  I  think  undoubtedly  true  that  the  amount  of  accom- 
modation given  by  the  post-office  of  the  States  is  small, 
as  compared  with  that  afforded  in  some  other  countries,  and 
that  that  accommodation  is  lessened  by  delays  and  uncer- 
tainty. The  point  which  first  struck  me  was  the  inconve- 
nient hours  at  which  mails  were  brought  in  and  dispatched. 
Here  in  England  it  is  the  object  of  our  post-office  to  carry 
the  bulk  of  our  letters  at  night;  to  deliver  them  as  early  as 
VOL.  II.— 23 


26G 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


possible  in  tlic  morning,  and  to  collect  them  and  take  them 
away  for  dispatch  as  late  as  may  be  in  the  day ;  so  that  the 
merchant  may  receive  his  letters  before  the  beginning  of  his 
day  business,  and  dispatch  th^  after  its  close.  The  bulk 
of  our  letters  is  handled  in  this  manner,  and  the  advantage 
of  such  an  arrangement  is  manifest.  But  it  seemed  that  in 
the  States  no  such  practice  prevailed.  Letters  arrived  at 
any  hour  in  the  day  miscellaneously,  and  were  dispatched 
at  any  hour,  and  I  found  that  the  postmaster  at  one  town 
could  never  tell  me  with  certainty  when  letters  would  arrive 
at  another.  If  the  towns  were  distant,  I  would  be  told  that 
the  conveyance  might  take  about  two  or  three  days ;  if  they 
were  near,  that  my  letter  w^ould  get  to  hand  "some  time 
to-morrow."  I  ascertained,  moreover,  by  painful  expe- 
rience that  the  whole  of  a  mail  would  not  always  go  for- 
v/ard  by  the  first  dispatch.  As  regarded  myself  this  had 
reference  chiefly  to  English  letters  and  newspapers.  "  Only 
a  part  of  the  mail  has  come,"  the  clerk  would  tell  me.  With 
us  the  owners  of  that  part  which  did  not  ''come,"  would 
consider  themselves  greatly  aggrieved  and  make  loud  com- 
plaint. But  in  the  States  complaints  made  against  official 
departments  are  held  to  be  of  little  moment. 

Letters  also  in  the  States  are  subject  to  great  delays  by 
irregularities  on  railways.  One  train  does  not  hit  the  town 
of  its  destination  before  another  train,  to  which  it  is  nom- 
inally fitted,  has  been  started  on  its  journey.  The  mail 
trains  are  not  bound  to  wait;  and  thus,  in  the  large  cities, 
far  distant  from  New  York,  great  irregularity  prevails.  It 
is  I  think  owing  to  this — at  any  rate  partly  to  this — that 
the  system  of  telegraphing  has  become  so  prevalent.  It  is 
natural  that  this  should  be  so  between  towns  which  are  in 
the  due  course  of  post  perhaps  forty-eight  hours  asunder ; 
but  the  uncertainty  of  the  post  increases  the  habit,  to  the 
profit  of  course  of  the  companies  which  own  the  wires, 
but  to  the  manifest  loss  of  the  post-office. 

But  the  deficiency  which  struck  me  most  forcibly  in  the 
American  post-office,  was  the  absence  of  any  recognized 
official  delivery  of  letters.  The  United  States  post-office 
does  not  assume  to  itself  the  duty  of  taking  letters  to  the 
houses  of  those  for  whom  they  are  intended,  but  holds 
itself  as  having  completed  the  work  for  which  the  original 
postage  has  been  paid,  when  it  has  brought  them  to  the 
window  of  the  Dost-office  of  the  town  to  which  they  are 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


addressed.  It  is  true  that  in  most  large  towns — though  by 
no  means  in  all — a  separate  arrangement  is  made  by  which 
a  delivery  is  afforded  to  tliose  who  are  willing  to  pay  a 
further  sum  for  that  further  service;  but  the  recognized 
official  mode  of  delivery  is  from  the  office  window.  The 
merchants  and  persons  in  trade  have  boxes  at  the  windows, 
for  which  they  pay.  Other  old-established  inhabitants  in 
town,  and  persons  in  receipt  of  a  considerable  correspond- 
ence, receive  their  letters  by  the  subsidiary  carriers  and  pay 
for  them  separately.  But  the  poorer  classes  of  the  com- 
munity, those  persons  among  which  it  is  of  such  paramount 
importance  to  increase  the  blessing  of  letter  writing,  obtain 
their  letters  from  the  post-office  windows. 

In  each  of  these  cases  the  practice  acts  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  department.  In  order  to  escape  the  tax  on  delivery, 
which  varies  from  two  cents  to  one  cent  a  letter,  all  men  in 
trade,  and  many  who  are  not  in  trade,  hold  office  boxes ; 
consequently  immense  space  is  required.  The  space  given 
at  Chicago,  both  to  the  public  without  and  to  the  official 
within,  for  such  delivery,  is  more  than  four  times  that  re- 
quired at  Liverpool  for  the  same  purpose.  But  Liverpool 
is  three  times  the  size  of  Chicago.  The  corps  of  clerks 
required  for  the  window  delivery  is  very  great,  and  the 
whole  affair  is  cumbrous  in  the  extreme.  The  letters  at 
most  offices  are  given  out  through  little  windows,  to  which 
the  inquirer  is  obliged  to  stoop.  There  he  finds  himself 
opposite  to  a  pane  of  glass  with  a  little  hole,  and  when  the 
clerk  within  shakes  his  head  at  him,  he  rarely  believes  but 
what  his  letters  are  there  if  he  could  only  reach  them.  But 
in  the  second  case,  the  tax  on  the  delivery,  which  is  intended 
simply  to  pay  the  wages  of  the  men  who  take  them  out,  is 
paid  with  a  bad  grace ;  it  robs  the  letter  of  its  charm,  and 
forces  it  to  present  itself  in  the  guise  of  a  burden :  it  makes 
that  disagreeable  which  for  its  own  sake  the  post-office 
should  strive  in  every  way  to  make  agreeable.  This  prac- 
tice, moreover,  operates  as  a  direct  prevention  to  a  class  of 
correspondence  which  furnishes  in  England  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  revenue  of  the  post-offi.ce.  Mercantile  houses 
in  our  large  cities  send  out  thousands  of  trade  circulars, 
paying  postage  on  them;  but  such  circulars  would  not  be 
received,  either  in  England  or  elsewhere,  if  a  demand  for 
postage  were  made  on  their  delivery.  Who  does  not  re- 
ceive these  circulars  in  our  country  by  the  dozen,  consigning 


268 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


them  generally  to  the  waste-paper  basket,  after  a  most  cur- 
sory inspection  ?  As  regards  the  sender,  the  transaction 
seems  to  us  often  to  be  very  vain ;  but  the  post-office  gets 
its  penny.  So  also  would  the  American  post-office  get  its 
three  cents. 

But  the  main  objection  in  my  eyes  to  the  American  post- 
office  system  is  this,  that  it  is  not  brought  nearer  to  the 
poorer  classes.  Everybody  writes  or  can  write  in  America, 
and  therefore  the  correspondence  of  their  millions  should 
be,  million  for  million,  at  any  rate  equal  to  ours.  But  it  is 
not  so ;  and  this  I  think  comes  from  the  fact  that  communi- 
cation by  post-office  is  not  made  easy  to  the  people  gener- 
ally. Such  communication  is  not  found  to  be  easy  by  a  man 
who  has  to  attend  at  a  post-office  window  on  the  chance  of 
receiving  a  letter.  When  no  arrangement  more  comfortable 
than  that  is  provided,  the  post-office  will  be  used  for  the 
necessities  of  letter  writing,  but  will  not  be  esteemed  as  a 
luxury.  And  thus  not  only  do  the  people  lose  a  comfort 
which  they  might  enjoy,  but  the  post-office  also  loses  that 
revenue  which  it  might  make. 

I  have  said  that  the  correspondence  circulating  in  the 
United  States  is  less  than  that  of  the  TJnited  Kingdom.  In 
making  any  comparison  between  them,  I  am  obliged  to 
arrive  at  facts,  or  rather  at  the  probabilities  of  facts,  in  a 
somewhat  circuitous  mode,  as  the  Americans  have  kept  no 
account  of  the  number  of  letters  which  pass  through  their 
post-offices  in  a  year  ;  we  can,  however,  make  an  estimate, 
which,  if  incorrect,  shall  not  at  any  rate  be  incorrect  against 
them.  The  gross  postal  revenue  of  the  United  States  for  the 
year  ended  June  30th,  1861,  was  in  round  figures  l,tOO,OOOZ. 
This  was  the  amount  actually  cashed,  exclusive  of  a  sum  of 
140,000^  paid  to  the  post-office  by  the  government  for  the  car- 
riage of  what  is  called  in  that  country  free  mail  matter ;  other- 
wise, books,  letters,  and  parcels  franked  by  members  of  Con- 
gress. The  gross  postal  revenue  of  the  United  Kingdom  was 
in  the  last  year,  in  round  figures,  3,358,000^.,  exclusive  of  a 
Bum  of  lt9,000Z.  claimed  as  earned  for  carrying  official  post- 
age, and  also  exclusive  of  12t,866Z.,  that  being  the  amount  of 
money  order  commissions,  which  in  this  country  is  consid- 
ered a  part  of  the  post-office  revenue.  In  the  United  States 
there  is  at  present  no  money  order  office.  In  the  United 
Kingdom  the  sum  of  3,358,000Z.  was  earned  by  the  convey- 
ance and  delivery  of  51)3,000,000  of  letters,  73.000,000  of 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


269 


newspapers,  12,000,000  of  books.  What  number  of  each 
was  conveyed  through  the  post  in  the  United  States  we  have 
no  means  of  knowing ;  but  presuming  the  average  rate  of 
postage  on  each  letter  in  the  States  to  be  the  same  as  it  is  in 
England,  and  presuming  also  that  letters,  newspapers,  and 
books  circulated  in  the  same  proportion  there  as  they  do 
with  us,  the  sum  above  named  of  1,700,000Z.  will  have  been 
earned  by  carrying  about  300,000,000  of  letters.  But  the 
average  rate  of  postage  in  the  States  is  in  fact  higher  than 
it  is  in  England.  The  ordinary  single  rate  of  postage  there 
is  three  cents,  or  three  half-pence,  whereas  with  us  it  is  a 
penny ;  and  if  three  half-pence  might  be  taken  as  the  average 
rate  in  the  United  States,  the  number  of  letters  would  be 
reduced  from  300,000,000  to  200,000,000  a  year.  There  is, 
however,  a  class  of  letters  which  in  the  States  are  passed 
through  the  post-office  at  the  rate  of  one  half-penny  a  letter, 
whereas  there  is  no  rate  of  postage  with  us  less  than  a 
penny.  Taking  these  half-penny  letters  into  consideration, 
I  am  disposed  to  regard  the  average  rate  of  American  post- 
age at  about  five  farthings,  which  would  give  ^the  number 
of  letters  at  250,000,000.  We  shall  at  any  rate  be  safe  in 
saying  that  the  number  is  considerably  less  than  300,000,000, 
and  that  it  does  not  amount  to  half  the  number  circulated 
with  us.  But  the  difference  between  our  population  and 
their  population  is  not  great.  The  population  of  the  States 
during  the  year  in  question  was  about  2^,000,000,  exclusive 
of  slaves,  and  that  of  the  British  Isles  was  about  29,000,000. 
No  doubt  in  the  year  named  the  correspondence  of  the 
States  had  been  somewhat  disturbed  by  the  rebellion ;  but 
that  disturbance,  up  to  the  end  of  June,  1861,  had  been 
very  trifling.  The  division  of  the  Southern  from  the  North- 
ern States,  as  far  as  the  post-office  was  concerned,  did  not 
take  place  till  the  end  of  May,  1861 ;  and  therefore  but  one 
month  in  the  year  was  aff'ected  by  the  actual  secession  of  the 
South.  The  gross  postal  revenue  of  the  States  which  have 
seceded  was,  for  the  year  prior  to  secession,  1,200,500  dol- 
lars, and  for  that  one  month  of  June  it  would  therefore  have 
been  a  little  over  100,000  dollars,  or  20,000Z.  That  sum 
may  therefore  be  presumed  to  have  been  abstracted  by  seces- 
sion from  the  gross  annual  revenue  of  the  post-office.  Trade, 
also,  was  no  doubt  injured  by  the  disturbance  in  the  country, 
and  the  circulation- of  letters  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to 
some  degree  affected  bv  this  injury ;  but  it  seems  that  the 
VOL.  II. — 23* 


2t0 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


gross  revenue  of  1861  was  less  than  that  of  1860  by  only- 
one  thirty-sixth.  I  think,  therefore,  that  we  may  say,  making 
all  allowance  that  can  be  fairly  made,  that  the  number  of 
letters  circulating  in  the  United  Kingdom  is  more  than 
double  that  which  circulates,  or  ever  has  circulated,  in  the 
United  States. 

That  this  is  so,  I  attribute  not  to  any  difiTerence  in  the 
people  of  the  two  countries,  not  to  an  aptitude  for  letter 
writing  among  us  which  is  wanting  with  the  Americans,  but 
to  the  greater  convenience  and  wider  accommodation  of  our 
own  post-office.  As  I  have  before  stated,  and  will  presently 
endeavor  to  show,  this  wider  accommodation  is  not  alto- 
gether the  result  of  better  management  on  our  part.  Our 
circumstances  as  regards  the  post-office  have  had  in  them 
less  of  difficulties  than  theirs.  But  it  has  arisen  in  great 
part  from  better  management;  and  in  nothing  is  their  defi- 
ciency so  conspicuous  as  in  the  absence  of  a  free  delivery  for 
their  letters. 

In  order  that  the  advantages  of  the  post-office  should 
reach  all  persons,  the  delivery  of  letters  should  extend  not 
only  to  towns,  but  to  the  country  also.  In  France  all  letters 
are  delivered  free.  However  remote  may  be  the  position 
of  a  house  or  cottage,  it  is  not  too  remote  for  the  postman. 
With  us  all  letters  are  not  delivered,  but  the  exceptions  refer 
to  distant  solitary  houses  and  to  localities  which  are  almost 
without  correspondence.  But  in  the  United  States  there  is 
no  free  delivery,  and  there  is  no  delivery  at  all  except  in  the 
large  cities.  In  small  towns,  in  villages,  even  in  the  suburbs 
of  the  largest  cities,  no  such  accommodation  is  given. 
Whatever  may  be  the  distance,  people  expecting  letters 
must  send  for  them  to  the  post-office ;  and  they  who  do  not 
expect  them,  leave  their  letters  uncalled  for.  Brother  Jona- 
than goes  out  to  fish  in  these  especial  waters  with  a  very 
large  net.  The  little  fish  which  are  profitable  slip  through; 
but  the  big  fish,  which  are  by  no  means  profitable,  are 
caught — often  at  an  expense  greater  than  their  value. 

There  are  other  smaller  sins  upon  which  I  could  put  my 
finger — and  would  do  so  were  I  writing  an  official  report 
upon  the  subject  of  the  American  post-office.  In  lieu  of 
doing  so,  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  how  much  the  States 
office  has  done  in  this  matter  of  affording  post-office  accom- 
modation, and  how  great  have  been  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  post-office  reformers  in  that  country. 


THE  POST  OFFICE. 


2T1 


In  the  first  place,  when  we  compare  ourselves  to  them  we 
must  remember  that  we  live  in  a  tea-cup,  and  they  in  a 
washing-tub.  As  compared  with  them  we  inhabit  towns 
which  are  close  to  each  other.  Our  distances,  as  compared 
with  theirs,  are  nothing.  From  London  to  Liverpool  the 
line  of  railway  I  believe  traverses  about  two  hundred  miles, 
but  the  mail  train  which  conveys  the  bags  for  Liverpool 
carries  the  correspondence  of  probably  four  or  live  millions 
of  persons.  The  mail  train  from  New  York  to  Buffalo 
passes  over  about  four  hundred  miles,  and  on  its  route 
leaves  not  one  million.  A  comparison  of  this  kind  might 
be  made  with  the  same  effect  between  any  of  our  great  in- 
ternal mail  routes  and  any  of  theirs.  Consequently  the 
expense  of  conveyance  to  them  is,  per  letter,  very  much 
greater  than  with  us,  and  the  American  post-office  is,  as  a 
matter  of  necessity,  driven  to  an  economy  in  the  use  of  rail- 
ways for  the  post-office  service  which  we  are  not  called  on 
to  practice.  From  New  York  to  Chicago  is  nearly  1000 
miles.  From  New  York  to  St.  Louis  is  over  1400.  From 
New  York  to  New  Orleans  is  1600  miles.  I  need  not  say 
that  in  England  we  know  nothing  of  such  distances,  and  that 
therefore  our  task  has  been  comparatively  easy.  Neverthe- 
less the  States  have  followed  in  our  track,  and  have  taken 
advantage  of  Sir  Rowland's  Hill's  wise  audacity  in  the  re- 
duction of  postage  with  greater  quickness  than  any  other 
nation  but  our  own.  Through  all  the  States  letters  pass 
for  three  cents  over  a  distance  less  than  3000  miles.  For 
distances  above  3000  miles  ,the  rate  is  ten  cents,  or  five 
pence.  This  increased  rate  has  special  reference  to  the 
mails  for  California,  which  are  carried  daily  across  the  whole 
continent  at  a  cost  to  the  States  government  of  two  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  a  year. 

With  us  the  chief  mail  trains  are  legally  under  the  man- 
agement of  the  Postmaster-General.  He  fixes  the  hours  at 
which  they  shall  start  and  arrive,  being  of  course  bound  by 
certain  stipulations  as  to  pace.  He  can  demand  trains  to 
run  over  any  line  at  any  hour,  and  can  in  this  way  secure 
the  punctuality  of  mail  transportation.  Of  course  such  in- 
terference on  the  part  of  a  government  official  in  the  work- 
ing of  a  railway  is  attended  with  a  very  heavy  expense  to 
the  government.  Though  the  British  post-office  can  de- 
mand the  use  of  trains  at  any  hour,  and  as  regards  those 
trains  can  make  the  dispatch  of  mails  paramount  to  all 


212 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


other  matters,  the  British  post-office  cannot  fix  the  price  to 
be  paid  for  such  work.  This  is  generally  done  by  arbitra- 
tion, and  of  course  for  such  services  the  payment  is  very 
high.  No  such  practice  prevails  in  the  States.  The  gov- 
ernment has  no  power  of  using  the  mail  lines  as  they  are 
used  by  our  post-office,  nor  could  the  expense  of  such  a 
practice  be  borne  or  nearly  borne  by  the  proceeds  of  letters 
in  the  States.  Consequently  the  post-office  is  put  on  a  par 
with  ordinary  customers,  and  such  trains  are  used  for  mail 
matter  as  the  directors  of  each  line  may  see  fit  to  use  for 
other  matter.  Hence  it  occurs  that  no  oftense  against  the 
post-office  is  committed  when  the  connection  between  dif- 
ferent mail  trains  is  broken.  The  post-office  takes  the  best 
it  can  get,  paying  as  other  customers  pay,  and  grumbling 
as  other  customers  grumble  when  the  service  rendered  falls 
short  of  that  which  has  been  promised. 

It  may,  I  think,  easily  be  seen  that  any  system,  such  as 
ours,  carried  across  so  large  a  country,  would  go  on  increas- 
ing in  cost  at  an  enormous  ratio.  The  greater  is  the  dis- 
tance, the  greater  is  the  difficulty  in  securing  the  proper 
fitting  of  fast-running  trains.  And  moreover,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  American  lines  have  been  got  up  on 
a  very  different  footing  from  ours,  at  an  expense  per  mile 
of  probably  less  than  a  fifth  of  that  laid  out  on  our  rail- 
ways. Single  lines  of  rail  are  common,  even  between  great 
towns  with  large  traffic.  At  the  present  moment,  Feb- 
ruary, 18G2,  the  only  railway  running  into  Washington,  that 
namely  from  Baltimore,  is  a  sipgle  line  over  the  greater  dis- 
tance. The  whole  thing  is  necessarily  worked  at  a  cheaper 
rate  than  with  us ;  not  because  the  people  are  poorer,  but 
because  the  distances  are  greater.  As  this  is  the  case 
throughout  the  whole  railway  system  of  the  country,  it  can- 
not be  expected  that  such  dispatch  and  punctuality  should 
be  achieved  in  America  as  are  achieved  here  in  England, 
or  in  France.  As  population  and  wealth  increase  it  will 
come.  In  the  mean  time  that  which  has  been  already  done 
over  the  extent  of  the  vast  North  American  continent  is 
very  wonderful.  I  think,  therefore,  that  complaint  should 
not  be  made  against  the  Washington  post-office,  either  on 
account  of  the  inconvenience  of  the  hours  or  on  the  head 
of  occasional  irregularity.  So  much  has  been  done  in  re- 
ducing the  rate  to  three  cents,  and  in  giving  a  daily  mail 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


2T3 


throughout  the  States,  that  the  department  should  be  praised 
for  energy,  and  not  blamed  for  apathy. 

In  the  year  ended  June  30,  18(U,  the  gross  revenue  of  the 
post-office  of  the  States  was,  as  I  have  stated,  1,700,000Z. 
In  the  same  year  its  expenditure  was  in  round  figures 
2,720,000/.;  consequently  there  was  an  actual  loss,  to  be 
made  up  out  of  general  taxation,  amounting  to  1,020,000Z. 
In  the  accounts  of  the  American  officers  this  is  lessened  by 
140,000/.  That  sum  having  been  arbitrarily  fixed  by  the 
government  as  the  amount  earned  by  the  post-office  in  car- 
rying free  mail  matter.  We  have  a  similar  system  in  com- 
puting the  value  of  the  service  rendered  by  our  post-office 
to  the  government  in  carrying  government  dispatches ;  but 
with  us  the  amount  named  as  the  compensation  depends  on 
the  actual  weight  carried.  If  the  matter  so  carried  be  car- 
ried solely  on  the  government  service,  as  is,  I  believe,  the 
case  with  us,  any  such  claim  on  behalf  of  the  post-office  is 
apparently  unnecessary.  The  Crown  works  for  the  Crown, 
as  the  right  hand  works  for  the  left.  The  post-office  pays 
no  rates  or  taxes,  contributes  nothing  to  the  poor,  runs  its 
mails  on  turnpike  roads  free  of  toll,  and  gives  receipts  on 
unstamped  paper.  With  us  no  payment  is  in  truth  made, 
though  the  post-office  in  its  accounts  presumes  itself  to 
have  received  the  money;  but  in  the  States  the  sum  named 
is  handed  over  by  the  State  Treasury  to  the  Post-office 
Treasury.  Any  such  statement  of  credit  does  not  in  effect 
alter  the  real  fact  that  over  a  million  sterling  is  required 
as  a  subsidy  by  the  American  post-office,  in  order  that  it 
may  be  enabled  to  pay  its  way.  In  estimating  the  expendi- 
ture of  the  office  the  department  at  Washington  debits  itself 
with  the  sums  paid  for  the  ocean  transit  of  its  mails,  amount- 
ing to  something  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds.  We  also  now  do  the  same,  with  the  much  greater 
sum  paid  by  us  for  such  service,  which  now  amounts  to 
949,228/.,  or  nearly  a  million  sterling.  Till  lately  this  was 
not  paid  out  of  the  post-office  moneys,  and  the  post-office 
revenue  was  not  debited  with  the  amount. 

Our  gross  post-office  revenue  is,  as  I  have  said,  3,358,250/. 
As  before  explained,  this  is  exclusive  of  the  amount  earned 
by  the  money  order  department,  which,  though  managed  by 
the  authorities  of  the  post-office,  cannot  be  called  a  part 
of  the  post-office;  and  exclusive  also  of  the  official  post- 
age, which  is,  in  fact,  never  received.    The  expenditure  of 


2t4 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


our  British  post-office,  inclusive  of  the  sum  paid  for  the 
ocean  mail  service,  is  3,064, 52TZ.;  we  therefore  make  a  net 
profit  of  293,  ii23/.  out  of  the  post-office,  as  compared  with 
a  loss  of  1,020,000Z.  on  tlie  part  of  the  United  States. 

But  perhaps  the  greatest  difficulty  with  which  the  Amer- 
ican post-office  is  burdened  is  that  "free  mail  matter"  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  for  carrying  which  the  post-office 
claims  to  earn  140,000Z.,  and  for  the  carriage  of  which  it 
might  as  fairly  claim  to  earn  1,350,000Z.,  or  half  the  amount 
of  its  total  expenditure,  for  I  was  informed  by  a  gentleman 
whose  knowledge  on  the  subject  could  not  be  doubted,  that 
the  free  mail  matter  so  carried  equaled  in  bulk  and  weight 
all  that  other  matter  which  was  not  carried  free.  To  such 
an  extent  has  the  privilege  of  franking  been  carried  in  the 
States !  All  members  of  both  Houses  frank  what  they 
please — for  in  effect  the  privilege  is  stretched  to  that  ex- 
tent. All  Presidents  of  the  Union,  past  and  present,  can 
frank,  as  also,  all  Vice-Presidents,  past  and  present;  and 
there  is  a  special  act,  enabling  the  widow  of  President  Polk 
to  frank.  Why  it  is  that  widows  of  other  Presidents  do 
not  agitate  on  the  matter,  I  cannot  understand.  And  all 
the  Secretaries  of  State  can  frank ;  and  ever  so  many 
other  public  officers.  There  is  no  limit  in  number  to  the 
letters  so  franked,  and  the  nuisance  has  extended  itself  to 
so  huge  a  size  that  members  of  Congress,  in  giving  franks, 
cannot  write  the  franks  themselves.  It  is  illegal  for  them 
to  depute  to  others  the  privilege  of  signing  their  names 
for  this  purpose,  but  it  is  known  at  the  post-office  that  it 
is  done.  But  even  this  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  Members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  have  the  power  of  send- 
ing through  the  post  all  those  huge  books  which,  with 
them  as  with  us,  grow  out  of  parliamentary  debates  and 
workings  of  committees.  This,  under  certain  stipulations, 
is  the  case  also  in  England ;  but  in  England,  luckily,  no  one 
values  them.  In  America,  however,  it  is  not  so.  A  voter 
considers  himself  to  be  noticed  if  he  gets  a  book ;  he  likes 
to  have  the  book  bound,  and  the  bigger  the  book  may  be, 
the  more  the  compliment  is  relished.  Hence  it  comes  to 
pass  that  an  enormous  quantity  of  useless  matter  is  printed 
and  bound,  only  that  it  may  he  sent  down  to  constituents 
and  make  a  show  on  the  parlor  shelves  of  constituents' 
wives.  The  post-office  groans  and  becomes  insolvent,  and 
the  country  pays  for  the  paper,  the  printing,  and  the  bind- 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


2t5 


ing.  While  the  public  expenses  of  this  nation  were  very 
small,  there  was,  perhaps,  no  reason  why  voters  should  not 
thus  be  indulged;  but  now  the  matter  is  different,  and  it 
would  be  well  that  the  conveyance  by  post  of  these  con- 
gressional libraries  should  be  brought  to  an  end.  I  was 
also  assured  that  members  very  frequently  obtain  permis- 
sion for  the  printing  of  a  speech  which  has  never  been 
delivered  —  and  which  never  will  be  delivered — in  order 
that  copies  may  be  circulated  among  their  constituents. 
There  is  in  such  an  arrangement  an  ingenuity  which  is 
peculiarly  American  in  its  nature.  Everybody  concerned 
is  no  doubt  cheated  by  the  system.  The  constituents  are 
cheated ;  the  public,  which  pays,  is  cheated ;  and  the  post- 
ofiQce  is  cheated.  But  the  House  is  spared  the  hearing  of 
the  speech,  and  the  result  on  the  whole  is  perhaps  bene- 
ficial. 

We  also,  within  the  memory  of  'many  of  us,  had  a  frank- 
ing privilege,  which  was  peculiarly  objectionable,  inasmuch 
as  it  operated  toward  giving  a  free  transmission  of  their 
letters  by  post  to  the  rich,  while  no  such  privilege  was 
within  reach  of  the  poor.  But  with  us  it  never  stretched 
itself  to  such  an  extent  as  it  has  now  achieved  in  the 
States.  The  number  of  letters  for  members  was  limited. 
The  whole  address  was  written  by  the  franking  member 
himself,  and  not  much  was  sent  in  this  way  that  was  bulky. 
I  am  disposed  to  think  that  all  government  and  congres- 
sional jobs  in  the  States  bear  the  same  proportion  to  gov- 
ernment and  parliamentary  jobs  which  have  been  in  vogue 
among  us.  There  has  been  an  unblushing  audacity  in  the 
public  dishonesty — what  I  may  perhaps  call  the  State  dis- 
honesty— at  Washington,  v/hich  I  think  was  hardly  ever 
equaled  in  London.  Bribery,  I  know,  was  disgracefully 
current  in  the  days  of  Walpole,  of  Newcastle,  and  even  of 
Castlereagh ;  so  current,  that  no  Englishman  has  a  right 
to  hold  up  his  own  past  government  as  a  model  of  purity ; 
but  the  corruption  with  us  did  blush  and  endeavor  to  hide 
itself.  It  was  disgraceful  to  be  bribed,  if  not  so  to  offer 
bribes.  But  at  Washington  corruption  has  been  so  com- 
mon that  I  can  hardly  understand  how  any  honest  man  can 
have  held  up  his  head  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Capitol  or  of 
the  State  office. 

But  the  country  has,  I  think,  become  tired  of  this.  Hith- 
erto it  has  been  too  busy  about  its  more  important  concerns, 


2T6 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


in  extending  commerce,  in  making  railways,  in  providing 
education  for  its  youth,  to  think  very  much  of  what  was 
being  done  at  Washington.  While  the  taxes  were  light, 
and  property  was  secure,  while  increasing  population  gave 
daily  increasing  strength  to  the  nation,  the  people  as  a  body 
were  content  with  that  theory  of  being  governed  by  their 
little  men.  They  gave  a  bad  name  to  politicians,  and  al- 
lowed politics,  as  they  say,  to  "slide."  But  all  this  will  be 
altered  now.  The  tremendous  expenditure  of  the  last  twelve 
months  has  allowed  dishonesty  of  so  vast  a  grasp  to  make 
its  ravages  in  the  public  pockets  that  the  evil  will  work  its 
own  cure.  Taxes  will  be  very  high,  and  the  people  will 
recognize  the  necessity  of  having  honest  men  to  look  after 
them.  The  nation  can  no  longer  afford  to  be  indifi'erent 
about  its  government,  and  will  require  to  know  where  its 
money  goes,  and  why  it  goes.  This  franking  privilege  is 
already  doomed,  if  not  already  dead.  When  I  was  in 
Washington,  a  bill  was  passed  through  the  Lower  House 
by  which  it  would  be  abolished  altogether.  When  I  left 
America,  its  fate  in  the  Senate  was  still  doubtful,  and  I 
was  told  by  many  that  that  bill  would  not  be  allowed  to 
become  law  without  sundry  alterations.  But,  nevertheless, 
I  regard  the  franking  privilege  as  doomed,  and  offer  to  the 
Washington  post-office  officials  my  best  congratulations  on 
their  coming  deliverance. 

The  post-office  in  the  States  is  also  burdened  by  another 
terrible  political  evil,  which  in  itself  is  so  heavy  that  one 
would  at  first  sight  declare  it  to  be  enough  to  prevent  any- 
thing like  efficiency.  The  whole  of  its  staff  is  removable 
every  fourth  year — that  is  to  say,  on  the  election  of  every 
new  President ;  and  a  very  large  proportion  of  its  staff  is 
thus  removed  periodically  to  make  way  for  those  for  whom 
a  new  President  is  bound  to  provide,  by  reason  of  their 
services  in  sending  him  to  the  White  House,  They  have 
served  him,  and  he  thus  repays  them  by  this  use  of  his 
patronage  in  their  favor.  At  four  hundred  and  thirty-four 
post-offices  in  the  States  —  those  being  the  offices  to  which 
the  highest  salaries  are  attached  —  the  President  has  this 
power,  and  exercises  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  He  has  the 
same  power  with  reference,  I  believe,  to  all  the  appoint- 
ments held  in  the  post-office  at  Washington.  This  practice 
applies  by  no  means  to  the  post-office  only.  All  the  gov- 
ernment clerks — clerks  employed  by  the  central  govern- 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


211 


ment  at  Washington  —  are  subject  to  the  same  rule.  And 
the  rule  has  also  been  adopted  in  the  various  States  with 
reference  to  State  offices. 

To  a  stranger  this  practice  seems  so  manifestly  absurd 
that  he  can  hardly  conceive  it  possible  that  a  government 
service  should  be  conducted  on  such  terms.  He  cannot,  in 
the  first  place,  believe  that  men  of  sufficient  standing  before 
the  world  could  be  found  to  accept  office  under  such  cir- 
cumstances ;  and  is  led  to  surmise  that  men  of  insufficient 
standing  must  be  employed,  and  that  there  are  other  allure- 
ments to  the  office  beyond  the  very  moderate  salaries  which 
are  allowed.  He  cannot,  moreover,  understand  how  the 
duties  can  be  conducted,  seeing  that  men  must  be  called  on 
to  resign  their  places  as  soon  as  they  have  learned  to  make 
themselves  useful.  And,  finally,  he  is  lost  in  amazement  as 
he  contemplates  this  barefaced  prostitution  of  the  public 
employ  to  the  vilest  purposes  of  political  manoeuvring. 
With  us  also  patronage  has  been  used  for  political  pur- 
poses, and  to  some  small  extent  is  still  so  used.  We  have 
not  yet  sufficiently  recognized  the  fact  that  in  selecting  a 
public  servant  nothing  should  be  regarded  but  the  advant- 
age of  the  service  for  which  he  is  to  be  employed.  But  we 
never,  in  the  lowest  times  of  our  political  corruption,  ven- 
tured to  throw  over  the  question  of  service  altogether,  and 
to  declare  publicly  that  the  one  and  only  result  to  be  ob- 
tained by  government  employment  was  political  support. 
In  the  States,  political  corruption  has  become  so  much  a 
matter  of  course  that  no  American  seems  to  be  struck  with 
the  fact  that  the  whole  system  is  a  system  of  robbery. 

From  sheer  necessity  some  of  the  old  hands  are  kept  on 
when  these  changes  are  made.  Were  this  not  done,  the 
work  would  come  absolutely  to  a  dead  lock.  But  as  it  is,  it 
may  be  imagined  how  difficult  it  must  be  for  men  to  carry 
through  any  improvements  in  a  great  department,  when  they 
have  entered  an  office  under  such  a  system,  and  are  liable  to 
be  expelled  under  the  same.  It  is  greatly  to  the  praise  of 
those  who  have  been  allowed  to  grow  old  in  the  service  that 
so  much  has  been  done.  No  men,  however,  are  more  apt  at 
such  work  than  Americans,  or  more  able  to  exert  themselves 
at  their  posts.  They  are  not  idle.  Independently  of  any 
question  of  remuneration,  they  are  not  indifferent  to  the 
well-being  of  the  work  they  have  in  hand.  They  are  good 
public  servants,  unless  corruption  come  in  their  way. 
VOL.  n. — 24 


2t8 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


While  speaking  on  the  subject  of  patronage,  I  cannot  but 
allude  to  two  appointments  which  had  been  made  by  pol- 
itical interest,  and  with  the  circumstances  of  which  I  became 
acquainted.  In  both  instances  a  good  place  had  been  given 
to  a  gentleman  by  the  incoming  President — not  in  return 
for  political  support,  but  from  motives  of  private  friendship 
; — eitlier  his  own  friendship  or  that  of  some  mutual  friend. 
In  both  instances  I  heard  the  selection  spoken  of  with  the 
warmest  praise,  as  though  a  noble  act  had  been  done  in  the 
selection  of  a  private  friend  instead  of  a  political  partisan. 
And  yet  in  each  case  a  man  was  appointed  who  knew  no- 
thing of  his  work ;  who,  from  age  and  circumstances,  was 
not  likely  to  become  acquainted  with  his  work  ;  who,  by  his 
appointment,  kept  out  of  the  place  those  who  did  under- 
stand the  work,  and  had  earned  a  right  to  promotion  by  so 
understanding  it.  Two  worthy  gentlemen — for  they  were 
both  worthy — were  pensioned  on  the  government  for  a  term 
of  years  under  a  false  pretense.  That  this  should  have  been 
done  is  not  perhaps  remarkable ;  but  it  did  seem  remarka- 
ble to  me  that  everybody  regarded  such  appointments  as 
a  good  deed — as  a  deed  so  exceptionably  good  as  to  be 
worthy  of  great  praise.  I  do  not  allude  to  these  selections 
on  account  of  the  political  view  shown  by  the  Presidents  in 
making  them,  but  on  account  of  the  political  virtue  ;  in 
order  that  the  nature  of  political  virtue  in  the  States  may 
be  understood.  It  had  never  occurred  to  any  one  to  whom 
I  spoke  on  the  subject,  that  a  President  in  the  bestowing  of 
such  places  was  bound  to  look  for  efficient  work  in  return 
for  the  public  money  which  was  to  be  paid. 

Before  I  end  this  chapter  I  must  insert  a  few  details  re- 
specting the  post-office  of  the  States,  which,  though  they 
may  not  be  specially  interesting  to  the  general  reader,  will 
give  some  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  department.  The  total 
number  of  post-offices  in  the  States  on  June  30th,  1861, 
was  28,586.  With  us  the  number  in  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland,  at  the  same  period,  was  about  11,400.  The  popula- 
tion served  may  be  regarded  as  nearly  the  same.  Our  lowest 
salary  is  3/.  per  annum.  In  the  States  the  remuneration  is 
often  much  lower.  It  consist  in  a  commission  on  the  let- 
ters, and  is  sometimes  less  than  ten  shillings.  The  dif- 
ficulty of  obtaining  persons  to  hold  these  offices,  and  the 
amount  of  work  which  must  thereby  be  thrown  on  what 
is  called  the  ''appointment  branch,"  may  be  judged  by  the 


THE  POST-OFFICE. 


219 


fact  that  9235  of  these  offices  were  filled  up  by  new  nomina- 
tions during  the  last  year.  When  the  patronage  is  of  such 
a  nature  it  is  difficult  to  say  which  give  most  trouble,  the 
places  which  nobody  wishes  to  have,  or  those  which  every- 
body wishes  to  have. 

The  total  amount  of  postage  on  European  letters,  i.e. 
letters  passing  between  the  States  and  Europe,  in  the  last 
year,  as  to  which  accounts  were  kept  between  Washington 
and  the  European  post-offices,  was  275,000Z.  Of  this  over 
150,000/.  was  on  letters  for  the  United  Kingdom ;  and 
130,000Z.  was  on  letters  carried  by  the  Cunard  packets. 

According  to  the  accounts  kept  by  the  Washington  office, 
the  letters  passing  from  the  States  to  Europe  and  from 
Europe  to  the  States  are  very  nearly  equal  in  number,  about 
101  going  to  Europe  for  every  100  received  from  Europe. 
But  the  number  of  newspapers  sent  from  the  States  is  more 
than  double  the  number  received  in  the  States  from  Europe. 

On  June  30th,  1861,  mails  were  carried  through  the  then 
loyal  States  of  the  Union  over  140,400  miles  daily.  Up  to 
31st  May  preceding,  at  which  time  the  government  mails 
were  running  all  through  the  United  States,  96,000  miles 
were  covered  in  those  States  which  had  then  virtually  se- 
ceded, and  which  in  the  following  month  were  taken  out 
from  the  post-office  accounts  —  making  a  total  of  236,400 
miles  daily.  Of  this  mileage  something  less  than  one-third 
is  effected  by  railways,  at  an  average  cost  of  about  six  pence 
a  mile.  Our  total  mileage  per  day  is  151,000  miles,  of 
which  43,823  are  done  by  railway,  at  a  cost  of  about  seven 
pence  half-penny  per  mile. 

As  far  as  I  could  learn,  the  servants  of  the  post-office  are 
less  liberally  paid  in  the  States  than  with  us,  excepting  as 
regards  two  classes.  The  first  of  these  is  that  class  which 
is  paid  by  weekly  wages,  such  as  letter-carriers  and  porters. 
Their  remuneration  is  of  course  ruled  by  the  rate  of  ordi- 
nary wages  in  the  country;  and  as  ordinary  wages  are 
higher  in  the  States  than  with  us,  such  men  are  paid  accord- 
ingly. The  other  class  is  that  of  postmasters  at  second- 
rate  towns.  They  receive  the  same  compensation  as  those 
at  the  largest  towns — unless  indeed  there  be  other  compen- 
sations than  those  written  in  the  books  at  Washington.  A 
postmaster  is  paid  a  certain  commission  on  letters,  till  it 
amounts  to  400/.  per  annum :  all  above  that  going  back  to 
the  government.    So  also  out  of  the  fees  paid  for  boxes  at 


260 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  window  lie  receives  any  amount  forthcoming  not  ex- 
ceeding iOOl.  a  year;  making  in  all  a  maximum  of  800Z. 
The  postmaster  of  New  York  can  get  no  more;  but  any 
moderately  large  town  will  give  as  much,  and  in  this  way 
an  amount  of  patronage  is  provided  which  in  a  political 
view  is  really  valuable. 

But  with  all  this  the  people  have  made  their  way,  because 
they  have  been  intelligent,  industrious,  and  in  earnest.  And 
as  the  people  have  made  their  way,  so  has  the  post-office. 
The  number  of  its  offices,  the  mileage  it  covers,  its  extraor- 
dinary cheapness,  the  rapidity  with  which  it  has  been  de- 
veloped, are  all  proofs  of  great  things  done ;  and  it  is  by 
no  means  standing  still  even  in  these  evil  days  of  war. 
Improvements  are  even  now  on  foot,  copied  in  a  great  meas- 
ure from  ourselves.  Hitherto  the  American  office  has  not 
taken  upon  itself  the  task  of  returning  to  their  writers  unde- 
livered and  undeliverable  letters.  This  it  is  now  going  to  do. 
It  is,  as  I  have  said,  shaking  off  from  itself  that  terrible  incu- 
bus, the  franking  privilege.  And  the  expediency  of  intro- 
ducing a  money-order  office  into  the  States,  connected  with 
the  post-office  as  it  is  with  us,  is  even  now  under  considera- 
tion. Such  an  accommodation  is  much  needed  in  the  country ; 
but  I  doubt  whether  the  present  moment,  looking  at  the 
fiscal  state  of  the  country,  is  well  adapted  for  establishing  it. 

I  was  much  struck  by  the  great  extravagance  in  small 
things  manifested  by  the  post-office  through  the  States,  and 
have  reason  to  believe  that  the  same  remark  would  be  equally 
true  with  regard  to  other  public  establishments.  They  use 
needless  forms  without  end  —  making  millions  of  entries 
which  no  one  is  ever  expected  to  regard.  Their  expendi- 
ture in  stationery  might  I  think  be  reduced  by  one-half,  and 
the  labor  miglit  be  saved  which  is  now  wasted  in  the  abuse 
of  that  useless  stationery.  Their  mail  bags  are  made  in  a 
costly  manner,  and  are  often  large  beyond  all  proportion  or 
necessity.  I  could  greatly  lengthen  this  list  if  I  were  ad- 
dressing myself  solely  to  post-office  people;  but  as  I  am 
not  doing  so,  I  will  close  these  semi-official  remarks  with  an 
assurance  to  my  colleagues  in  post-office  work  on  the  other 
side  of  the  water  that  I  greatly  respect  what  they  have 
done,  and  trust  that  before  long  they  may  have  renewed 
opportunities  for  the  prosecution  of  their  good  work. 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


281 


CHAPTER  XIY. 

AMERICAN  HOTELS. 

I  FIND  it  impossible  to  resist  the  subject  of  inns.  As  I 
bave  gone  on  with  my  journey,  I  have  gone  on  with  my 
book,  and  have  spoken  here  and  there  of  American  hotels 
as  I  have  encountered  them.  But  in  the  States  the  hotels 
are  so  large  an  institution,  having  so  much  closer  and  wider 
a  bearing  on  social  life  than  they  do  in  any  other  country, 
that  I  feel  myself  bound  to  treat  them  in  a  separate  chap- 
ter as  a  great  national  arrangement  in  themselves.  They 
are  quite  as  much  thought  of  in  the  nation  as  the  legisla- 
ture, or  judicature,  or  literature  of  the  country;  and  any 
falling  off  in  them,  or  any  improvement  in  the  accommoda- 
tion given,  would  strike  the  community  as  forcibly  as  any 
change  in  the  Constitution  or  alteration  in  the  franchise. 

Moreover,  I  consider  myself  as  qualified  to  write  a  chap- 
ter on  hotels  —  not  only  on  the  hotels  of  America,  but  on 
hotels  generally.  I  have  myself  been  much  too  frequently 
a  sojourner  at  hotels.  I  think  I  know  what  a  hotel  should 
be,  and  what  it  should  not  be ;  and  am  almost  inclined  to 
believe,  in  ray  pride,  that  I  could  myself  fill  the  position  of 
a  landlord  with  some  chance  of  social  success,  though  proba- 
bly with  none  of  satisfactory  pecuniary  results. 

Of  all  hotels  known  to  me,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
the  Swiss  are  the  best.  The  things  wanted  at  a  hc^tel  are, 
I  fancy,  mainly  as  follows:  a  clean  bed-room,  with  a  good 
and  clean  bed,  and  with  it  also  plenty  of  water.  Good 
food,  well  dressed  and  served  at  convenient  hours,  which 
hours  should  on  occasions  be  allowed  to  stretch  themselves. 
Wines  that  shall  be  drinkable.  Quick  attendance.  Bills 
that  shall  not  be  absolutely  extortionate,  smiling  faces,  and 
an  absence  of  foul  smells.  There  are  many  who  desire  more 
than  this  —  who  expect  exquisite  cookery,  choice  wines, 
subservient  domestics,  distinguished  consideration,  and  the 
strictest  economy ;  but  they  are  uneducated  travelers,  who 
VOL.  IL — 24* 


282 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


are  going  through  the  apprenticeship  of  their  hotel  lives ; 
who  may  probably  never  become  free  of  the  travelers'  guild, 
or  learn  to  distinguish  that  which  they  may  fairly  hope  to 
attain  from  that  which  they  can  never  accomplish. 

Taking  them  as  a  whole,  I  think  that  the  Swiss  hotels 
are  the  best.  They  are  perhaps  a  little  close  in  the  matter 
of  cold  water,  but  even  as  to  this  they  generally  give  way 
to  pressure.  The  pressure,  however,  must  not  be  violent, 
but  gentle  rather,  and  well  continued.  Their  bed-rooms  are 
excellent.  Their  cookery  is  good,  and  to  the  outward  senses 
is  cleanly.  The  people  are  civil.  The  whole  work  of  the 
house  is  carried  on  upon  fixed  rules  which  tend  to  the  com- 
fort of  the  establishment.  They  are  not  cheap,  and  not  al- 
ways quite  honest.  But  the  exorbitance  or  dishonesty  of 
their  charges  rarely  exceeds  a  certain  reasonable  scale,  and 
hardly  ever  demands  the  bitter  misery  of  a  remonstrance. 

The  inns  of  the  Tyrol  are,  I  think,  the  cheapest  I  have 
known — affording  the  traveler  what  he  requires  for  half  the 
price,  or  less  than  half,  demanded  in  Switzerland.  But 
the  other  half  is  taken  out  in  stench  and  nastiness.  As 
tourists  scatter  themselves  more  profusely,  the  prices  of  the 
Tyrol  will  no  doubt  rise.  Let  us  hope  that  increased 
prices  will  bring  with  them  besoms,  scrubbing-brushes,  and 
other  much-needed  articles  of  cleanliness. 

The  inns  of  the  north  of  Italy  are  very  good  ;  and,  in- 
deed, the  Italian  inns  throughout,  as  far  as  I  know  them, 
are  much  better  than  the  name  they  bear.  The  Italians  are 
a  civil,  kindly  people,  and  do  for  you,  at  any  rate,  the  best 
they  can.  Perhaps  the  unwary  traveler  may  be  cheated. 
Ignorant  of  the  language,  he  may  be  called  on  to  pay  more 
than  the  man  who  speaks  it  and  who  can  bargain  in  the 
Italian  fashion  as  to  price.  It  has  often  been  my  lot,  I 
doubt  not,  to  be  so  cheated  ;  but  then  I  have  been  cheated 
with  a  grace  that  has  been  worth  all  the  money.  The  ordi- 
nary prices  of  Italian  inns  are  by  no  means  high. 

I  have  seldom  thoroughly  liked  the  inns  of  Germany 
which  I  have  known.  They  are  not  clean,  and  water  is 
very  scarce.  Smiles,  too,  are  generally  wanting,  and  I  have 
usually  fancied  myself  to  be  regarded  as  a  piece  of  goods 
out  of  which  so  much  profit  was  to  be  made. 

The  dearest  hotels  I  know  are  the  French — and  certainly 
not  the  best.  In  the  provinces  they  are  by  no  means  so 
cleanly  as  those  of  Italy.   Their  wines  are  generally  abom- 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


283 


inable,  and  their  cookery  often  disgusting.  In  Paris  grand 
dinners  may  no  doubt  be  had,  and  luxuries  of  every  descrip- 
tion— except  the  luxury  of  comfort.  Cotton-velvet  sofas 
and  ormolu  clocks  stand  in  the  place  of  convenient  furni- 
ture ;  and  logs  of  wood,  at  a  franc  a  log,  fail  to  impart  to 
you  the  heat  which  the  freezing  cold  of  a  Paris  winter  de- 
mands. They  used  to  make  good  coffee  in  Paris,  but  even 
that  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  fancy  that  they  import  their 
brandy  from  England  and  manufacture  their  own  cigars. 
French  wines  you  may  get  good  at  a  Paris  hotel ;  but  you 
would  drink  them  as  good  and  much  cheaper  if  you  bought 
them  in  London  and  took  them  with  you. 

The  worst  hotels  I  know  are  in  the  Havana.  Of  course 
I  do  not  speak  here  of  chance  mountain  huts,  or  small,  far- 
off  roadside  hostels,  in  which  the  traveler  may  find  himself 
from  time  to  time.  All  such  are  to  be  counted  apart,  and 
must  be  judged  on  their  merits  by  the  circumstances  which 
surround  them.  But  with  reference  to  places  of  wide  re- 
sort, nothing  can  beat  the  hotels  of  the  Havana  in  filth, 
discomfort,  habits  of  abomination,  and  absence  of  every- 
thing which  the  traveler  desires.  All  the  world  does  not 
go  to  the  Havana,  and  the  subject  is  not  therefore  one  of 
general  interest.  But  in  speaking  of  hotels  at  large,  so 
much  I  find  myself  bound  to  say. 

In  all  the  countries  to  which  I  have  alluded  the  guests 
of  the  house  are  expected  to  sit  down  together  at  one  table. 
Conversation  is  at  any  rate  possible ;  and  there  is  the  show, 
if  not  the  reality,  of  society. 

And  now  one  word  as  to  English  inns.  I  do  not  think  that 
we  Englishmen  have  any  great  right  to  be  proud  of  them. 
The  worst  about  them  is  that  they  deteriorate  from  year  to 
year,  instead  of  becoming  better.  We  used  to  hear  much  of 
the  comfort  of  the  old  English  wayside  inn,  but  the  old  Eng- 
lish wayside  inn  has  gone.  The  railway  hotel  has  taken  its 
place  ;  and  the  railway  hotel  is  too  frequently  gloomy,  des- 
olate, comfortless,  and  almost  suicidal.  In  England,  too, 
since  the  old  days  are  gone,  there  are  wanting  the  landlord's 
bow  and  the  kindly  smile  of  his  stout  wife.  Who  now  knows 
the  landlord  of  an  inn,  or  cares  to  inquire  whether  or  no 
there  be  a  landlady  ?  The  old  welcome  is  wanting ;  and 
the  cheery,  warm  air,  which  used  to  atone  for  the  bad  port 
and  tough  beef,  has  passed  away — while  the  port  is  still  bad 
and  the  beef  too  often  tough. 


284 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


In  England,  and  only  in  England  as  I  believe,  is  main- 
tained in  hotel  life  the  theory  of  solitary  existence.  The 
sojourner  at  an  English  inn — unless  he  be  a  commercial 
traveler,  and  as  such  a  member  of  a  universal,  peripatetic 
tradesman's  club — lives  alone.  He  has  his  breakfast  alone, 
his  dinner  alone,  his  pint  of  wine  alone,  and  his  cup  of  tea 
alone.  It  is  not  considered  practicable  that  two  strangers 
should  sit  at  the  same  table  or  cut  from  the  same  dish. 
Consequently  his  dinner  is  cooked  for  him  separately,  and 
the  hotel  keeper  can  hardly  afford  to  give  him  a  good  din- 
per.  He  has  two  modes  of  life  from  which  to  choose.  He 
either  lives  in  a  public  room — called  a  coffee-room — and 
there  occupies,  during  his  comfortless  meal,  a  separate  small 
table,  too  frequently  removed  from  lire  and  light,  though 
generally  exposed  to  draughts,  or' else  he  indulges  in  the 
luxury  of  a  private  sitting-room,  and  endeavors  to  find  sol- 
ace on  an  old  horse-hair  sofa,  at  the  cost  of  seven  shillings 
a  day.  His  bed-room  is  not  so  arranged  that  he  can  use 
it  as  a  sitting-room.  Under  either  phase  of  life  he  can 
rarely  find  himself  comfortable,  and  therefore  he  lives  as 
little  at  a  hotel  as  the  circumstances  of  his  business  or  of 
his  pleasure  will  allow.  I  do  not  think  that  any  of  the 
requisites  of  a  good  inn  are  habitually  to  be  found  in  per- 
fection at  our  Kings'  Heads  and  White  Horses,  though  the 
falling  off  is  not  so  lamentably  distressing  as  it  sometimes 
is  in  other  countries.  The  bed-rooms  are  dingy  rather  than 
dirty.  Extra  payment  to  servants  will  generally  produce  a 
tub  of  cold  water.  The  food  is  never  good,  but  it  is  usually 
eatable,  and  you  may  have  it  when  you  please.  The  wines 
are  almost  always  bad,  but  the  traveler  can  fall  back  upon 
beer.  The  attendance  is  good,  provided  always  that  the 
payment  for  it  is  liberal.  The  cost  is  generally  too  high, 
and  unfortunately  grows  larger  and  larger  from  year  to 
year.  Smiling  faces  are  out  of  the  question  unless  specially 
paid  for  ;  and  as  to  that  matter  of  foul  smells,  there  is  often 
room  for  improvement.  An  English  inn  to  a  solitary  trav- 
eler without  employment  is  an  embodiment  of  dreary  des- 
olation. The  excuse  to  be  made  for  this  is  that  English 
mjn  and  women  do  not  live  much  at  inns  in  their  own 
country. 

The  American  inn  differs  from  all  those  of  which  1  have 
made  mention,  and  is  altogether  an  institution  apart,  and  a 
thing  of  itself.    Hotels  in  America  are  very  much  larger 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


285 


and  more  numerous  than  in  other  countries.  They  are  to 
be  found  in  all  towns,  and  I  may  almost  say  in  all  villages. 
In  England  and  on  the  Continent  we  find  them  on  the  re- 
cognized routes  of  travel  and  in  towns  of  commercial  or 
social  importance.  On  unfrequented  roads  and  in  villages 
there  is  usually  some  small  house  of  public  entertainment 
in  which  the  unexpected  traveler  may  obtain  food  and 
shelter,  and  in  which  the  expected  boon  companions  of  the 
neighborhood  smoke  their  nightly  pipes  and  drink  their 
nightly  tipple.  But  in  the  States  of  America  the  first  sign 
of  an  incipient  settlement  is  a  hotel  five  stories  high,  with 
an  office,  a  bar,  a  cloak  room,  three  gentlemen's  parlors,  two 
ladies'  parlors,  and  a  ladies'  entrance,  and  two  hundred  bed- 
rooms. 

These  of  course  are  all  built  with  a  view  to  profit,  and 
it  may  be  presumed  that  in  each  case  the  originators  of  the 
speculation  enter  into  some  calculation  as  to  their  expected 
guests.  Whence  are  to  come  the  sleepers  in  those  two 
hundred  bed-rooms,  and  who  is  to  pay  for  the  gaudy  sofas 
and  numerous  lounging  chairs  of  the  ladies'  parlors?  In 
all  other  countries  the  expectation  would  extend  itself  simply 
to  travelers — to  travelers  or  to  strangers  sojourning  in  the 
land.  But  this  is  by  no  means  the  case  as  to  these  specula- 
tions in  America.  When  the  new  hotel  rises  up  in  the  wil- 
derness, it  is  presumed  that  people  will  come  there  with  the 
express  object  of  inhabiting  it.  The  hotel  itself  will  create 
a  population,  as  the  railways  do.  W^ith  us  railways  run 
to  the  towns ;  but  in  the  States  the  towns  run  to  the  rail- 
ways.   It  is  the  same  thing  with  the  hotels. 

Housekeeping  is  not  popular  with  young  married  people 
in  America,  and  there  are  various  reasons  why  this  should 
be  so.  Men  there  are  not  fixed  in  their  employment  as 
they  are  with  us.  If  a  young  Benedict  cannot  get  along  as 
a  lawyer  at  Salem,  perhaps  he  may  thrive  as  a  shoemaker 
at  Thermopylae.  Jefferson  B.  Johnson  fails  in  the  lumber 
line  at  Eleutheria,  but  hearing  of  an  opening  for  a  Baptist 
preacher  at  Big  Mud  Creek  moves  himself  oif  with  his  wife 
and  three  children  at  a  week's  notice.  Aminadab  Wiggs 
takes  an  engagement  as  a  clerk  at  a  steamboat  office  on  the 
Pongow^onga  River,  but  he  goes  to  his  employment  with  an 
inward  conviction  that  six  months  will  see  him  earning  his 
bread  elsewhere.  Under  such  circumstances  even  a  large 
wardrobe  is  a  nuisance,  and  a  collection  of  furniture  would 


286 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


be  as  appropriate  as  a  drove  of  elephants.  Then  again 
young  men  and  women  marry  without  any  means  already 
collected  on  which  to  commence  their  life.  They  are  con- 
tent to  look  forward  and  to  hope  that  such  means  will  come. 
In  so  doing  they  are  guilty  of  no  imprudence.  It  is  the 
way  of  the  country,  and,  if  the  man  be  useful  for  anything, 
employment  will  certainly  come  to  him.  But  he  must  live 
on  the  fruits  of  that  employment,  and  can  only  pay  his  way 
from  week  to  week  and  from  day  to  day.  And  as  a  third 
reason,  I  think  I  may  allege  that  the  mode  of  life  found  in 
these  hotels  is  liked  by  the  people  who  frequent  them.  It 
is  to  their  taste.  They  are  happy,  or  at  any  rate  contented, 
at  these  hotels,  and  do  not  wish  for  household  cares.  As 
to  the  two  first  reasons  which  I  have  given,  I  can  agree  as 
to  the  necessity  of  the  case,  and  quite  concur  as  to  the  ex- 
pediency of  marriage  under  such  circumstances.  But  as  to 
that  matter  of  taste,  I  cannot  concur  at  all.  Anything  more 
forlorn  than  a  young  married  woman  at  an  American  hotel, 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 

Such  are  the  guests  expected  for  those  two  hundred  bed- 
rooms. The  chance  travelers  are  but  chance  additions  to 
these,  and  are  not  generally  the  mainstay  of  the  hou&e.  As 
a  matter  of  course  the  accommodation  for  travelers  which 
these  hotels  afford  increases  and  creates  traveling.  Men 
come  because  they  know  they  will  be  fed  and  bedded  at  a 
moderate  cost,  and  in  an  easy  way,  suited  to  their  tastes. 
With  us,  and  throughout  Europe,  inquiry  is  made  before  an 
unaccustomed  journey  is  commenced,  on  that  serious  ques- 
tion of  wayside  food  and  shelter.  But  in  the  States  no  such 
question  is  needed.  A  big  hotel  is  a  matter  of  course,  and 
therefore  men  travel.  Everybody  travels  in  the  States. 
The  railways  and  the  hotels  between  them  have  so  churned 
up  the  people  that  an  untraveled  man  or  woman  is  a  rare 
animal.  We  are  apt  to  suppose  that  travelers  make  roads, 
and  that  guests  create  hotels ;  but  the  cause  and  effect  run 
exactly  in  the  other  way.  I  am  almost  disposed  to  think 
that  we  should  become  cannibals  if  gentlemen's  legs  and 
ladies'  arms  were  hung  up  for  sale  in  purveyors'  shops. 

After  this  fashion  and  with  these  intentions  hotels  are 
built.  Size  and  an  imposing,  exterior  are  the  first  requisi- 
tions. Everything  about  them  must  be  on  a  large  scale. 
A  commanding  exterior,  and  a  certain  interior  dignity  of 
demeanor,  is  more  essential  than  comfort  or  civility.  What- 


A3HERICAN  HOTELS. 


28T 


ever  a  hotel  may  be  it  must  not  be  "mean."  In  the  Amer- 
ican vernacular  the  word  mean  is  very  significant.  A  mean 
white  in  the  South  is  a  man  who  owns  no  slaves.  Men  are 
often  mean,  but  actions  are  seldom  so  called.  A  man  feels 
mean  wlien  the  bluster  is  taken  out  of  him.  A  mean  hotel, 
conducted  in  a  quiet  unostentatious  manner,  in  which  the 
only  endeavor  made  had  reference  to  the  comfort  of  a  few 
guests,  would  find  no  favor  in  the  States.  These  hotels  are 
not  called  by  the  name  of  any  sign,  as  with  us  in  our  pro- 
vinces. There  are  no  ''Presidents'  Heads"  or  "General 
Scotts."  Nor  by  the  name  of  the  landlord,  or  of  some 
former  landlord,  as  with  us  in  London,  and  in  many  cities 
of  the  Continent.  Nor  are  they  called  from  some  country 
or  city  which  may  have  been  presumed  at  some  time  to  have 
had  special  patronage  for  the  establishment.  In  the  nomen- 
clature of  American  hotels  the  specialty  of  American  hero 
worship  is  shown,  as  in  the  nomenclature  of  their  children. 
Every  inn  is  a  house,  and  these  houses  are  generally  named 
after  some  hero,  little  known  probably  in  the  world  at  large, 
but  highly  estimated  in  that  locality  at  the  moment  of  the 
christening. 

They  are  always  built  on  a  plan  which  to  a  European 
seems  to  be  most  unnecessarily  extravagant  in  space.  It 
is  not  unfrequently  the  case  that  the  greater  portion  of  the 
ground  floor  is  occupied  by  rooms  and  halls  which  make 
no  return  to  the  house  whatever.  The  visitor  enters  a 
great  hall  by  the  front  door,  and  almost  invariably  finds  it 
full  of  men  who  are  idling  about,  sitting  round  on  stationary 
seats,  talking  in  a  listless  manner,  and  getting  through  their 
time  as  though  the  place  were  a  public  lounging-room. 
And  so  it  is.  The  chances  are  that  not  half  the  crowd  are 
guests  at  the  hotel.  I  will  now  follow  the  visitor  as  he 
makes  his  way  up  to  the  office.  Every  hotel  has  an  office. 
To  call  this  place  the  bar,  as  I  have  done  too  frequently,  is 
a  lamentable  error.  The  bar  is  held  in  a  separate  room 
appropriated  solely  to  drinking.  To  the  office,  which  is 
in  fact  a  long  open  bar,  the  guest  walks  up,  and  there  in- 
scribes his  name  in  a  book.  This  inscription  was  to  me  a 
moment  of  misery  which  I  could  never  go  through  with 
equanimity.  As  the  name  is  written,  and  as  the  request 
for  accommodation  is  made,  half  a  dozen  loungers  look 
over  your  name  and  listen  to  what  you  say.  They  listen 
attentively,  and  spell  your  name  carefully,  but  the  great 


288 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


man  behind  the  bar  does  not  seem  to  listen  or  to  heed  you ; 
your  destiny  is  never  imparted  to  you  on  the  instant.  If 
your  wife  or  any  other  woman  be  with  you  —  the  word 
"lady"  is  made  so  absolutely  distasteful  in  American  hotels 
that  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  use  it  in  writing  of  them — 
she  has  been  carried  off  to  a  lady's  waiting  room,  and  there 
remains  in  august  wretchedness  till  the  great  man  at  the 
bar  shall  have  decided  on  her  fate.  I  have  never  been  quite 
able  to  fathom  the  mystery  of  these  delays.  I  think  they 
must  have  originated  in  the  necessity  of  waiting  to  see 
what  might  be  the  influx  of  travelers  at  the  moment,  and 
then  have  become  exaggerated  and  brought  to  their  pres- 
ent normal  state  by  the  gratified  feeling  of  almost  divine 
power  with  which  for  the  time  it  invests  that  despotic 
arbiter.  I  have  found  it  always  the  same,  though  arriving 
with  no  crowd,  by  a  conveyance  of  my  own,  when  no  other 
expectant  guests  were  following  me.  The  great  man  has 
listened  to  my  request  in  silence,  with  an  imperturbable 
face,  and  has  usually  continued  his  conversation  with  some 
loafing  friend,  who  at  the  time  is  probably  scrutinizing  my 
name  in  the  book.  I  have  often  suffered  in  patience,  but 
patience  is  not  specially  the  badge  of  my  tribe,  and  I  have 
sometimes  spoken  out  rather  freely.  If  I  may  presume  to 
give  advice  to  my  traveling  countrymen  how  to  act  under 
such  circumstances,  I  should  recommend  to  them  freedom 
of  speech  rather  than  patience.  The  great  man,  when 
freely  addressed,  generally  opens  his  eyes,  and  selects  the 
key  of  your  room  without  further  delay.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  selection  will  not  be  made  in  any  ^ay  to 
your  detriment  by  reason  of  that  freedom  of  speech.  The 
lady  in  the  ballad  who  spoke  out  her  own  mind  to  Lord 
Bateman,  was  sent  to  her  home  honorably  in  a  coach  and 
three.  Had  she  held  her  tongue,  we  are  justified  in  pre- 
suming that  she  would  have  been  returned  on  a  pillion 
behind  a  servant. 

I  have  been  greatly  annoyed  by  that  want  of  speech.  I 
have  repeatedly  asked  for  room,  and  received  no  syllable  in 
return.  I  have  persisted  in  my  request,  and  the  clerk  has 
nodded  his  head  at  me.  Until  a  traveler  is  known,  these 
gentlemen  are  singularly  sparing  of  speech,  especially  in 
the  West.  The  same  economy  of  words  runs  down  from 
the  great  man  at  the  office  all  through  the  servants  of  the 
establishment.    It  arises,  I  believe,  entirely  from  that  want 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


289 


of  courtesy  which  democratic  institutions  create.  The  man 
whom  you  address  has  to  make  a  battle  against  the  state 
of  subservience  presumed  to  be  indicated  by  his  position, 
and  lie  does  so  by  declaring  his  indifference  to  the  person 
on  whose  wants  he  is  paid  to  attend.  I  have  been  honored 
on  one  or  two  occasions  by  the  subsequent  intimacy  of 
these  great  men  at  the  hotel  offices,  and  have  then  found 
them  ready  enough  at  conversation. 

That  necessity  of  making  your  request  for  room  before  a 
public  audience  is  not  in  itself  agreeable,  and  sometimes 
entails  a  conversation  which  miglit  be  more  comfortably 
made  in  private.  "What  do  y^u  mean  by  a  dressing-room, 
and  why  do  you  want  one  ?"  Now  that  is  a  question  which 
an  Englishman  feels  awkward  at  answering  before  five  and 
twenty  Americans,  with  open  mouths  and  eager  eyes;  but 
it  has  to  be  answered.  When  I  left  England,  I  was  as- 
sured that  1  should  not  find  any  need  for  a  separate  sitting- 
I'oom,  seeing  that  drawing-rooms  more  or  less  sumptuous 
were  prepared  for  the  accommodation  of  "ladies."  At 
first  we  attempted  to  follow  the  advice  given  to  us,  but 
we  broke  down.  A  man  and  his  wife  traveling  from  town 
to  town,  and  making  no  sojourn  on  his  way,  may  eat  and 
sleep  at  a  hotel  without  a  private  parlor.  But  an  Eng- 
lish woman  cannot  live  in  comfort  for  a  week,  or  even  in 
comfort  for  a  day,  at  any  of  these  houses,  without  a  sit- 
ting-room for  herself.  The  ladies'  drawing-room  is  a  deso- 
late wilderness.  The  American  women  themselves  do  not 
use  it.  It  is  generally  empty,  or  occupied  by  some  forlorn 
spinster,  eliciting  harsh  sounds  from  the  wretched  piano 
which  it  contains. 

The  price  at  these  hotels  throughout  the  Union  is  nearly 
always  the  same,  viz.,  two  and  a  half  dollars  a  day,  for 
which  a  bed-room  is  given  and  as  many  meals  as  the  guest 
can  contrive  to  eat.  This  is  the  price  for  chance  guests. 
The  cost  to  monthly  boarders  is,  I  believe,  not  more  thau 
the  half  of  this.  Ten  shillings  a  day,  therefore,  covers 
everything  that  is  absolutely  necessary,  servants  included; 
and  this  must  be  said,  in  praise  of  these  inns  —  tliat  the 
traveler  can  compute  his  expenses  accurately,  and  can  ab- 
solutely bring  them  within  that  daily  sum  of  ten  shillings. 
This  includes  a  great  deal  of  eating,  a  great  deal  of  attend- 
ance, the  use  of  reading-room  and  smoking-room — which, 
however,  always  seem  to  be  open  to  the  public  as  well  as  to 
VOL.  II. — 25 


290 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  guests — and  a  bed  room,  with  accommodation  which  is 
at  any  rate  as  good  as  the  average  accommodation  of  hotels 
in  Europe.  lu  the  large  Eastern  towns  baths  are  attached 
to  many  of  the  rooms.  I  always  carry  my  own,  and  have 
never  failed  in  getting  water.  It  must  be  acknowledged 
that  the  price  is  very  cheap.  It  is  so  cheap  that  I  believe 
it  affords,  as  a  rule,  no  profit  whatsoever.  The  profit  is 
made  upon  extra  charges,  and  they  are  higher  than  in  any 
other  country  that  I  have  visited.  They  are  so  high  that 
I  consider  traveling  in  America,  for  an  Englishman  with 
his  wife  or  family,  to  be  more  expensive  than  traveling  in 
any  part  of  Europe.  First4n  the  list  of  extras  comes  that 
matter  of  the  sitting-room,  and  by  that  for  a  man  and  his 
wife  the  whole  first  expense  is  at  once  doubled.  The  ordi- 
nary charge  is  five  dollars,  or  one  pound  a  day  I  A  guest 
intending'  to  stay  for  two  or  three  weeks  at  a  hotel,  or 
perhaps  for  one  week,  may,  by  agreement,  have  this  charge 
reduced.  At  one  inn  I  stayed  a  fortnight,  and  having  made 
no  such  agreement,  was  charged  the  full  sum.  I  felt  my- 
self stirred  up  to  complain,  and  did  in  that  case  remon- 
strate. I  was  asked  how  much  I  wished  to  have  returned 
— for  the  bill  had  been  paid — and  the  sum  I  suggested  was 
at  once  handed  to  me.  But  even  with  such  reduction,  the 
price  is  very  high,  and  at  once  makes  the  American  hotel 
expensive.  Wine  also  at  these  houses  is  very  costly,  and 
very  bad.  The  usual  price  is  two  dollars  (or  eight  shillings) 
a  bottle.  The  people  of  the  country  rarely  drink  wine  at 
dinner  in  the  hotels.  When  they  do  so,  they  drink  cham- 
pagne; but  their  normal  drinking  is  done  separately,  at  the 
bar,  chiefly  before  dinner,  and  at  a  cheap  rate.  "A  drink," 
let  it  be  what  it  may,  invariably  costs  a  dime,  or  five  pence. 
But  if  you  must  have  a  glass  of  sherry  with  your  dinner,  it 
costs  two  dollars;  for  sherry  does  not  grow  into  pint  bot- 
tles in  the  States.  But  the  guest  who  remains  for  two  days 
can  have  his  wine  kept  for  him.  Washing  also  is  an  ex- 
pensive luxury.  The  price  of  this  is  invariable,  being 
always  four  pence  for  everything  washed.  A  cambric  hand- 
kerchief or  muslin  dress  all  come  out  at  the  same  price. 
For  those  who  are  cunning  in  the  matter  this  may  do  very 
well ;  but  for  men  and  women  whose  cuffs  and  collars  are 
numerous  it  becomes  expensive.  The  craft  of  those  who 
are  cunning  is  shown,  I  think,  in  little  internal  washings,  by 
which  the  cambric  handkerchiefs  are  kept  out  of  the  list, 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


291 


while  the  muslin  dresses  are  placed  upon  it.  I  am  led  to 
this  surmise  by  the  energetic  measures  taken  by  the  hotel- 
keepers  to  prevent  such  domestic  washings,  and  by  the 
denunciations  which  in  every  hotel  are  pasted  up  in  every 
room  against  the  practice.  I  could  not  at  first  understand 
why  I  was  always  warned  against  washing  my  own  clothes 
in  my  own  bed-room,  and  told  that  no  foreign  laundress 
could  on  any  account  be  admitted  into  the  house.  The  in- 
junctions given  on  this  head  are  almost  frantic  in  their 
energy,  and  therefore  I  conceive  that  hotel-keepers  find 
themselves  exposed  to  much  suffering  in  the  matter.  At 
these  hotels  they  wash  with  great  rapidity,  sending  you 
back  your  clothes  in  four  or  five  hours  if  you  desire  it. 

Another  very  stringent  order  is  placed  before  the  face  of 
all  visitors  at  American  hotels,  desiring  them  on  no  account 
to  have  valuable  property  in  their  rooms.  I  presume  that 
there  must  have  been  some  difficulty  in  this  matter  in  by- 
gone years ;  for  in  every  State  a  law  has  been  passed  de- 
claring that  hotel-keepers  shall  not  be  held  responsible  for 
money  or  jewels  stolen  out  of  rooms  in  their  houses,  pro- 
vided that  they  are  furnished  with  safes  for  keeping  such 
money  and  give  due  caution  to  their  guests  on  the  subject. 
The  due  caution  is  always  given,  but  I  have  seldom  myself 
taken  any  notice  of  it.  I  have  always  left  my  portmanteau 
open,  and  have  kept  my  money  usually  in  a  traveling-desk 
in  my  room ;  but  I  never  to  my  knowledge  lost  anything. 
The  world,  I  think,  gives  itself  credit  for  more  thieves  than 
it  possesses.  As  to  the  female  servants  at  American  inns, 
they  are  generally  all  that  is  disagreeable.  They  are  un- 
civil, impudent,  dirty,  slow — provoking  to  a  degree.  But 
I  believe  that  they  keep  their  hands  from  picking  and 
stealing. 

I  never  yet  made  a  single  comfortable  meal  at  an  Ameri- 
can hotel,  or  rose  from  my  breakfast  or  dinner  with  that 
feeling  of  satisfaction  which  should,  I  think,  be  felt  at  such 
moments  in  a  civilized  land  in  which  cookery  prevails  as  an 
art.  I  have  had  enough,  and  have  been  healthy,  and  am 
thankful.  But  that  thankfulness  is  altogether  a  matter 
apart,  and  does  not  bear  upon  the  question.  If  need  be,  I 
can  eat  food  that  is  disagreeable  to  my  palate  and  make  no 
complaint.  But  I  hold  it  to  be  compatible  with  the  princi- 
ples of  an  advanced  Christianity  to  prefer  food  that  is  pal- 
atable.  I  never  could  get  any  of  that  kind  at  an  American 


292 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


hotel.  All  meal-times  at  such  houses  were  to  me  periods 
of  disagreeable  duty;  and  at  this  moment,  as  I  write  these 
lines  at  the  hotel  in  which  I  am  still  staying,  I  pine  for  an 
English  leg  of  mutton.  But  I  do  not  wish  it  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  fault  of  which  I  complain — for  it  is  a  griev- 
ous fault — is  incidental  to  America  as  a  nation.  I  have 
stayed  in  private  houses,  and  have  daily  sat  down  to  dinners 
quite  as  good  as  any  my  own  kitchen  could  aflbrd  me. 
Their  dinner  parties  are  generally  well  done,  and  as  a  peo- 
ple tliey  are  by  no  means  indifferent  to  the  nature  of  their 
comestibles.  It  is  of  the  hotels  that  I  speak  ;  and  of  them 
I  again  say  that  eating  in  them  is  a  disagreeable  task — a 
painful  labor.  It  is  as  a  schoolboy's  lesson,  or  the  six 
hours'  confinement  of  a  clerk  at  his  desk. 

The  mode  of  eating  is  as  follows  :  Certain  feeding  hours 
are  named,  which  generally  include  nearly  all  the  day. 
Breakfast  from  six  till  ten.  Dinner  from  one  till  five.  Tea 
from  six  till  nine.  Supper  from  nine  till  twelve.  When  the 
guest  presents  himself  at  any  of  these  hours,  he  is  marshaled 
to  a  seat,  and  a  bill  is  put  into  his  hand  containing  the 
names  of  all  the  eatables  then  offered  for  his  choice.  The 
list  is  incredibly  and  most  unnecessarily  long.  Then  it  is 
that  you  will  see  care  written  on  the  face  of  the  American 
hotel  liver,  as  he  studies  the  programme  of  the  coming  per- 
formance. With  men  this  passes  off  unnoticed,  but  with 
young  girls  the  appearance  of  the  thing  is  not  attractive. 
The  anxious  study,  the  elaborate  reading  of  the  daily  book, 
and  then  the  choice  proclaimed  with  clear  articulation: 
"  Boiled  mutton  and  caper  sauce,  roast  duck,  hashed  veni- 
son, mashed  potatoes,  poached  eggs  and  spinach,  stewed 
tomatoes.  Yes — and,  waiter,  some  squash!"  There  is  no 
false  delicacy  in  the  voice  by  which  this  order  is  given,  no 
desire  for  a  gentle  whisper.  Tlie  dinner  is  ordered  with  the 
firm  determination  of  an  American  heroine  ;  and  in  some 
five  minutes'  time  all  the  little  dishes  appear  at  once,  and  the 
lady  is  surrounded  by  her  banquet. 

JioYi  I  did  learn  to  hate  those  little  dishes  and  their 
greasy  contents  !  At  a  London  eating-house  things  are 
often  not  very  nice,  but  your  meat  is  put  on  a  plate  and 
comes  before  you  in  an  edible  shape.  At  these  hotels  it  is 
brought  to  you  in  horrid  little  oval  dishes,  and  swims  in 
grease  ;  gravy  is  not  an  institution  in  American  hotels,  but 
grease  has  taken  its  place.    It  is  palpable,  undisguised 


AMERICAN  HOTELS. 


293 


grease,  floating  in  rivers — not  grease  caused  by  accidental 
bad  cookery,  but  grease  on  purpose.  A  beef-steak  is  not  a 
beef-steak  unless  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  butter  be  added 
to  it.  Those  horrid  little  dishes  !  If  one  thinks  of  it,  how 
could  they  have  been  made  to  contain  Christian  food  ? 
Every  article  in  that  long  list  is  liable  to  the  call  of  any 
number  of  guests  for  four  hours.  Under  such  circumstances 
how  can  food  be  made  eatable  ?  Your  roast  mutton  is 
brought  to  you  raw;  if  you  object  to  that,  you  are  supplied 
with  meat  that  has  been  four  times  brought  before  the  pub- 
lic. At  hotels  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  different  dinners 
are  cooked  at  different  hours  ;  but  here  the  same  dinner  is 
kept  always  going.  The  house  breakfast  is  maintained  on 
a  similar  footing.  Huge  boilers  of  tea  and  coffee  are  stewed 
down  and  kept  hot.  To  me  those  meals  were  odious.  It 
is  of  course  open  to  any  one  to  have  separate  dinners  and 
separate  breakfasts  in  his  own  rooms ;  but  by  this  little  is 
gained  and  much  is  lost.  He  or  she  who  is  so  exclusive 
pays  twice  over  for  such  meals — as  they  are  charged  as  ex- 
tras on  the  bill — and,  after  all,  receives  the  advantage  of  no 
exclusive  cooking.  Particles  from  the  public  dinners  are 
brought  to  the  private  room,  and  the  same  odious  little 
dishes  make  their  appearance. 

But  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  American  hotels 
is  in  their  public  rooms.  Of  the  ladies'  drawing-room  I  have 
spoken.  There  are  two,  and  sometimes  three,  in  one  hotel, 
and  they  are  generally  furnished  at  any  rate  expensively. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  space  and  the  furniture  are  almost 
thrown  away.  At  watering-places  and  sea-side  summer  ho- 
tels they  are,  I  presume,  used ;  but  at  ordinary  hotels  they 
are  empty  deserts.  The  intention  is  good,  for  they  are  es- 
tablished with  the  view  of  giving  to  ladies  at  hotels  the 
comforts  of  ordinary  domestic  life  ;  but  they  fail  in  theii* 
effect.  Ladies  will  not  make  themselves  happy  in  any  room, 
or  with  ever  so  much  gilded  furniture,  unless  some  means 
of  happiness  are  provided  for  them.  Into  these  rooms  no 
book  is  ever  brought,  no  needle-work  is  introduced ;  from 
them  no  clatter  of  many  tongues  is  ever  heard.  On  a  mar- 
ble table  in  the  middle  of  the  room  always  stands  a  large 
pitcher  of  iced  water ;  and  from  this  a  cold,  damp,  unin- 
viting air  is  spread  through  the  atmosphere  of  the  ladies' 
drawing-room. 

Below,  on  the  ground  floor,  there  is,  in  the  first  place,  the 
VOL.  IL— -25* 


294 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


huge  entrance  hall,  at  the  back  of  which,  behind  a  bar,  the 
great  man  of  the  place  keeps  the  keys  and  holds  his  court. 
There  are  generally  seats  around  it,  in  which  smokers  sit — 
or  men  not  smoking  but  ruminating.  Opening  off  from  this 
are  reading-rooms,  smoking-rooms,  shaving-rooms,  drinking- 
rooms,  parlors  for  gentlemen  in  which  smoking  is  prohibited 
and  which  are  generally  as  desolate  as  ladies' sitting-rooms 
above.  In  those  other  more  congenial  chambers  is  always 
gathered  together  a  crowd  apparently  belonging  in  no  way 
to  the  hotel.  It  would  seem  that  a  great  portion  of  an 
American  inn  is  as  open  to  the  public  as  an  Exchange  or 
as  the  wayside  of  the  street.  In  the  West,  during  the  early 
months  of  this  war,  the  traveler  would  always  see  many  sol- 
diers among  the  crowd — not  only  officers,  but  privates.  They 
sit  in  public  seats,  silent  but  apparently  contented,  sometimes 
for  an  hour  together.  All  Americans  are  given  to  gather- 
ings such  as  these.  It  is  the  much-loved  institution  to  which 
the  name  of  "  loafing"  has  been  given. 

I  do  not  like  the  mode  of  life  which  prevails  in  the  Amer- 
ican hotels.  I  have  come  across  exceptions,  and  know  one 
or  two  that  are  very  comfortable — always  excepting  that 
matter  of  eating  and  drinking.  Taking  them  as  a  whole, 
I  do  not  like  their  mode  of  life ;  but  I  feel  bound  to  add 
that  the  hotels  of  Canada,  which  are  kept  I  think  always 
after  the  same  fashion,  are  infinitely  worse  than  those  of 
the  United  States.  I  do  not  like  the  American  hotels ; 
but  I  must  say  in  their  favor  that  they  aiford  an  immense 
amount  of  accommodation.  The  traveler  is  rarely  told 
that  a  hotel  is  full,  so  that  traveling  in  America  is  without 
one  of  those  great  perils  to  which  it  is  subject  in  Europe. 


LITERATURE. 


295 


CHAPTER  XY. 

LITERATURE. 

In  speaking  of  the  literature  of  any  country  we  are,  I 
think,  too  much  inclined  to  regard  th.e  question  as  one  ap- 
pertaining exclusively  to  the  writers  of  books — not  acknowl- 
edging as  we  should  do  that  the  literary  character  of  a 
people  vnW  depend  much  more  upon  what  it  reads  than  upon 
what  it  writes.  If  we  can  suppose  any  people  to  have  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the  best  literary  efforts  of  other 
countries,  we  should  hardly  be  correct  in  saying  that  such  a 
people  had  no  literary  history  of  their  own  because  it  had 
itself  produced  nothing  in  literature.  And,  with  reference 
to  those  countries  which  have  been  most  fertile  in  the  pro- 
duction of  good  books,  I  doubt  whether  their  literary  his- 
tories should  not  have  more  to  tell  of  those  ages  in  which 
much  has  been  read  than  of  those  in  which  much  has  been 
written. 

The  United  States  have  been  by  no  means  barren  in  the 
production  of  literature.  Tlie  truth  is  so  far  from  this  that 
their  literary  triumphs  are  perhaps  those  which  of  all  their 
triumphs  are  the  most  honorable  to  them,  and  which,  con- 
sidering their  position  as  a  young  nation,  are  the  most 
permanently  satisfactory.  But  though  they  have  done  much 
in  writing,  they  have  done  much  more  in  reading.  As  pro- 
ducers they  are  more  than  respectable,  but  as  consumers 
they  are  the  most  conspicuous  people  on  the  earth.  It  is 
impossible  to  speak  of  the  subject  of  literature  in  America 
without  thinking  of  the  readers  rather  than  of  the  writers. 
In  this  matter  their  position  is  different  from  that  of  any 
other  great  people,  seeing  that  they  share  the  advantages 
of  our  language.  An  American  will  perhaps  consider  him- 
self to  be  as  little  like  an  Englishman  as  he  is  like  a  French- 
man. But  he  reads  Shakspeare  through  the  medium  of  his 
own  vernacular,  and  has  to  undergo  the  penance  of  a  foreign 
tongue  before  he  can  understand  Moliere.  He  separates 
himself  from  England  in  politics  and  perhaps  in  affection ; 


296 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


but  he  cannot  separate  himself  from  England  in  mental  cul- 
ture. It  may  be  suggested  that  an  Englishman  has  the 
same  advantages  as  regards  America ;  and  it  is  true  that 
he  is  obtaining  much  of  such  advantage.  Irving,  Prescott, 
and  Longfellow  are  the  same  to  England  as  though  she 
herself  had  produced  them.  But  the  balance  of  advantage 
must  be  greatly  in  favor  of  America,  We  gave  her  the 
work  of  four  hundred  years,  and  received  back  in  return  the 
work  of  fifty. 

And  of  this  advantage  the  Americans  have  not  been  slow 
to  avail  themselves.  As  consumers  of  literature  they  are 
certainly  the  most  conspicuous  people  on  the  earth.  Where 
an  English  publisher  contents  himself  with  thousands  of 
copies,  an  American  publisher  deals  with  ten  thousand.  The 
sale  of  a  new  book,  which  in  numbers  would  amount  to  a 
considerable  success  with  us,  would  with  them  be  a  lamenta- 
ble failure.  This  of  course  is  accounted  for,  as  regards  the 
author  and  the  publisher,  by  the  difference  of  price  at  which 
the  book  is  produced.  One  thousand  in  England  will  give 
perhaps  as  good  a  return  as  the  ten  thousand  in  America. 
But  as  regards  the  readers  there  can  be  no  such  equaliza- 
tion :  the  thousand  copies  cannot  spread  themselves  as  do 
the  ten  thousand.  The  one  book  at  a  guinea  cannot  multi- 
ply itself,  let  Mr.  Mudie  do  what  he  will,  as  do  the  ten 
books  at  a  dollar.  Ultimately  there  remain  the  ten  books 
against  the  one;  and  if  there  be  not  the  ten  readers  against 
the  one,  there  are  five,  or  four,  or  three.  Everybody  in  the 
States  has  books  about  his  house.  "And  so  has  everybody 
in  England,"  will  say  my  English  reader,  mindful  of  the 
libraries,  or  book-rooms,  or  book-crowded  drawing-rooms 
of  his  friends  and  acquaintances.  But  has  my  English 
reader  who  so  replies  examined  the  libraries  of  many  Eng- 
lish cabmen,  of  ticket  porters,  of  warehousemen,  and  of 
agricultural  laborers  ?  I  cannot  take  upon  myself  to  say 
that  I  have  done  so  with  any  close  search  in  the  States ; 
but  when  it  has  been  in  my  power  I  have  done  so,  and  I 
have  always  found  books  in  such  houses  as  I  have  entered. 
The  amount  of  printed  matter  which  is  poured  forth  in 
streams  from  the  printing  presses  of  the  great  American 
publishers  is,  however,  a  better  proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I 
say  than  anything  that  I  can  have  seen  myself. 

But  of  what  class  are  the  books  that  are  so  read  ?  There 
are  many  who  think  that  reading  in  itself  is  not  good  unless 


LITERATURE. 


29t 


the  matter  read  is  excellent.  I  do  not  myself  quite  agree 
with  this,  thinking  that  almost  any  reading  is  better  than 
none  ;  but  I  will  of  course  admit  that  good  matter  is  better 
than  bad  matter.  The  bulk  of  the  literature  consumed  in 
the  States  is  no  doubt  composed  of  novels— as  it  is  also, 
now-a-days,  in  this  country.  Whether  or  no  an  unlimited 
supply  of  novels  for  young  people  is  or  is  not  advantageous, 
I  will  not  here  pretend  to  say.  The  general  opinion  with 
ourselves,  I  take  it,  is  that  novels  are  bad  reading  if  they  be 
bad  of  their  kind.  Novels  that  are  not  bad  are  now-a-days 
accepted  generally  as  indispensable  to  our  households. 
Whatever  may  be  the  weakness  of  the  American  literary 
taste  in  this  respect,  it  is  I  think  a  weakness  which  we 
share.  There  are  more  novel  readers  among  them  than 
with  us,  but  only  I  think  in  the  proportion  that  there  are 
more  readers. 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  works  by  English 
authors  are  more  popular  in  the  States  than  those  written 
by  Americans ;  and,  among  English  authors  of  the  present 
day,  readers  by  no  means  confine  themselves  to  the  novelists. 
The  English  names  of  whom  I  heard  most  during  my  so- 
journ in  the  States  were  perhaps  those  of  Dickens,  Tenny- 
son, Buckle,  Tom  Hughes,  Martin  Tupper,  and  Thackeray. 
As  the  owners  of  all  these  names  are  still  living,  I  am  not 
going  to  take  upon  myself  the  delicate  task  of  criticising 
the  American  taste.  I  may  not  perhaps  coincide  with  them 
in  every  respect.  But  if  I  be  right  as  to  the  names  which 
I  have  given,  such  a  selection  shows  that  they  do  get  be- 
yond novels.  I  have  little  doubt  but  that  many  more  copies 
of  Dickens's  novels  have  been  sold,  during  the  last  three 
years,  than  of  the  works  either  of  Tennyson  or  Buckle; 
but  such  also  has  been  the  case  in  England.  It  will  proba- 
bly be  admitted  that  one  copy  of  the  "Civilization"  should 
be  held  as  being  equal  to  five  and  twenty  of  "Nicholas 
Nickleby,"  and  that  a  single  "In  Memoriam"  may  fairly 
weigh  down  half  a  dozen  "Pickwicks."  Men  and  women 
after  their  day's  work  are  not  always  up  to  the  "Civiliza- 
tion." As  a  rule,  they  are  generally  up  to  "Proverbial 
Philosophy,"  and  this,  perhaps,  may  have  had  something  to 
do  with  the  great  popularity  of  that  very  popular  work. 

I  would  not  have  it  supposed  that  American  readers  de- 
spise their  own  authors.  The  Americans  are  very  proud  of 
having  a  literature  of  their  own,  and  among  the  literary 


298 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


names  which  they  honor,  there  are  none  more  honorable  than 
those  of  Cooper  and  Irving.  They  like  to  know  that  their 
modern  historians  are  acknowledged  as  great  authors,  and 
as  regards  their  own  poets,  will  sometimes  demand  your 
admiration  for  strains  with  which  you  hardly  find  yourself 
to  be  familiar.  But  English  books  are,  I  think,  the  better 
loved :  even  the  English  books  of  the  present  day.  And 
even  beyond  this — with  those  who  choose  to  indulge  in  the 
luxuries  of  literature — books  printed  in  England  are  more 
popular  than  those  which  are  printed  in  their  own  country; 
and  yet  the  manner  in  which  the  American  publishers  put 
out  their  work  is  very  good.  The  book  sold  there  at  a  dol- 
lar, or  a  dollar  and  a  quarter,  quite  equals  our  ordinary  five 
shilling  volume.  Nevertheless,  English  books  are  preferred, 
almost  as  strongly  as  are  French  bonnets.  Of  books  abso- 
lutely printed  and  produced  in  England,  the  supply  in  the 
States  is  of  course  small.  They  must  necessarily  be  costly, 
and  as  regards  new  books,  are  always  subjected  to  the  rivalry 
of  a  cheaper  American  copy.  But  of  the  reprinted  works 
of  English  authors  the  supply  is  unlimited,  and  the  sale 
very  great.  Almost  everything  is  reprinted :  certainly 
everything  which  can  be  said  to  attain  any  home  popu- 
larity. I  do  not  know  how  far  English  authors  may  be 
aware  of  the  fact;  but  it  is  undoubtedly  a  fact  that  their 
influence  as  authors  is  greater  on  the  other  side  of  the  At- 
lantic than  on  this  one.  It  is  there  that  they  have  their 
most  numerous  school  of  pupils.  It  is  there  that  they  are 
recognized  as  teachers  by  hundreds  of  thousands.  It  is  of 
these  thirty  millions  that  they  wshould  think,  at  any  rate  in 
part,  when  they  discuss  within  their  own  hearts  that  ques- 
tion which  all  authors  do  discuss,  whether  that  which  they 
write  shall  in  itself  be  good  or  bad,  be  true  or  false.  A 
writer  in  England  may  not,  perhaps,  think  very  much  of 
this  with  reference  to  some  trifle  of  which  his  English  pub- 
lisher proposes  to  sell  some  seven  or  eight  hundred  copies. 
But  he  begins  to  feel  that  he  should  have  thought  of  it 
when  he  learns  that  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  copies  of  the 
same  have  been  scattered  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  United  States.  The  English  author  should  feel  that 
he  writes  for  the  widest  circle  of  readers  ever  yet  obtained 
by  the  literature  of  any  country.  He  provides  not  only  for 
his  own  country  and  for  the  States,  but  for  the  readers  who  are 
rising  by  millions  in  the  British  colonies.    Canada  is  sup- 


LITERATURE. 


299 


plied  chiefly  from  the  presses  of  Boston,  New  York,  and 
Philadelphia,  but  she  is  supplied  with  the  works  of  the 
mother  country.  India,  as  I  take  it,  gets  all  her  books  di- 
rect from  London,  as  do  the  West  Indies.  Whether  or  no 
the  Australian  colonies  have  as  yet  learned  to  reprint  our 
books  I  have  never  learned,  but  I  presume  that  they  cannot 
do  so  as  cheaply  as  they  can  import  them.  London  with 
us,  and  the  three  cities  which  I  have  named  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  are  the  places  at  which  this  literature  is 
manufactured ;  but  the  demand  in  the  Western  hemisphere 
is  becoming  more  brisk  than  that  which  the  Old  World 
creates.  There  are,  I  have  no  doubt,  more  books  printed 
in  London  than  in  all  America  put  together.  A  greater 
extent  of  letter-press  is  put  up  in  London  than  in  the  three 
publishing  cities  of  the  States;  but  the  number  of  copies 
issued  by  the  American  publishers  is  so  much  greater  than 
those  which  ours  put  forth  that  the  greater  bulk  of  litera- 
ture is  with  them.  If  this  be  so,  the  demand  with  them  is 
of  course  greater  than  it  is  with  us. 

I  have  spoken  here  of  the  privilege  which  an  English  au- 
thor enjoys  by  reason  of  the  ever-widening  circle  of  readers 
to  whom  he  writes.  I  should  have  said  the  writers  of  Eng- 
lish literature,  seeing  that  the  privilege  is  of  course  shared  by 
the  American  writer.  I  profess  my  belief  that  in  the  States 
an  English  author  has  an  advantage  over  one  of  that  country 
merely  in  the  fact  of  his  being  English,  as  a  French  mil- 
liner has  undoubtedly  an  advantage  in  her  nationality, 
let  her  merits  or  demerits  as  a  milliner  be  what  they  may. 
I  think  that  English  books  are  better  liked  because  they  are 
English.  But  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  feeling  with 
us  either  for  or  against  an  author  because  he  is  American. 
I  believe  that  Longfellow  stands  in  our  judgment  exactly 
where  he  would  have  stood  had  he  been  a  tutor  at  a  college 
in  Oxford  instead  of  a  Professor  at  Cambridge  in  Massa- 
chusetts. Prescott  is  read  among  us  as  a  historian  without 
any  reference  as  to  his  nationality,  and  by  many,  as  I  take 
it^  in  absolute  ignorance  of  his  nationality.  Hawthorne, 
the  novelist,  is  quite  as  well  known  in  England  as  he  is  in 
his  own  country.  But  I  do  not  know  that  to  either  of  these 
three  is  awarded  any  favor  or  is  denied  any  justice  because 
he  is  an  American.  Washington  Irving  published  many  of 
his  works  in  this  country,  receiving  very  large  sums  for  them 
from  Mr.  Murray,  and  I  fancy  that  in  dealing  with  his  pub- 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


lisher  lie  found  iieitlier  advantage  nor  disadvantage  in  his 
nationality;  that  is,  of  course,  advantage  or  disadvantage 
as  respected  the  light  in  which  his  works  would  be  regarded. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  no  jealousy  in  the  States 
against  English  authors.  I  think  that  there  is  a  feeling  in 
their  favor,  but  no  one  can  at  any  rate  allege  that  there  is  a 
feeling  against  them :  I  think  I  may  also  assert  on  the  part 
of  my  own  country  that  there  is  no  jealousy  here  against 
American  authors.  As  regards  the  tastes  of  the  people, 
the  works  of  each  country  flow  freely  through  the  other. 
That  is  as  it  should  be.  But  when  we  come  to  the  mode  of 
supply,  things  are  not  exactly  as  they  should  be ;  and  I  do 
not  believe  that  any  one  will  contradict  me  when  I  say  that 
the  fault  is  with  the  Americans. 

I  presume  that  all  my  readers  know  the  meaning  of  the 
word  copyright.  A  man's  copyright  is  right  in  his  copy ; 
is  that  amount  of  legal  possession  in  the  production  of  .his 
brains  which  has  been  secured  to  him  by  the  law  of  his  own 
country  and  of  others.  Unless  an  author  were  secured  by 
such  law,  his  writings  would  be  of  but  little  pecuniary  value  to 
him,  as  the  right  of  printing  and  selling  them  would  be  open 
to  all  the  world.  In  England  and  in  America,  and  as  I 
conceive  in  all  countries  possessing  a  literature,  there  is 
such  a  law,  securing  to  authors  and  to  their  heirs,  for  a  term 
of  years,  the  exclusive  right  over  their  own  productions. 
That  this  should  be  so  in  England,  as  regards  English  au- 
thors, appears  to  be  so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  the 
copyright  of  an  author  seems  to  be  as  naturally  his  own  as 
a  gentleman's  deposit  at  his  bank,  or  his  little  investment  in 
the  three  per  cents.  The  right  of  an  author  to  the  value 
of  his  own  productions  in  other  countries  than  his  own  is 
not  so  much  a  matter  of  course  ;  but  nevertheless,  if  such 
productions  have  any  value  in  other  countries,  that  value 
should  belong  to  him.  This  has  been  felt  to  be  the  case 
between  England  and  France,  and  an  international  copy- 
right now  exists.  The  fact  that  the  languages  of  England 
and  France  are  different,  makes  the  matter  one  of  compar- 
atively small  moment.  But  it  has  been  found  to  be  for  the 
honor  and  profit  of  the  two  countries  that  there  should  be 
such  a  law,  and  an  international  copyright  does  exist.  But 
if  such  an  arrangement  be  needed  between  two  such  coun- 
tries as  France  and  England — between  two  countries  which 
do  not  speak  the  same  language,  or  share  the  same  litera- 


LITERATURE. 


301 


ture — how  much  more  necessary  must  it  be  between  England 
and  the  United  States !  The  literature  of  the  one  country 
is  the  literature  of  the  other.  The  poem  that  is  popular  in 
London  will  certainly  be  popular  in  New  York.  The  novel 
that  is  effective  among  American  ladies  will  be  equally  so 
with  those  of  England.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the 
importance  of  having  or  of  not  having  a  law  of  copyright 
between  the  two  countries.  The  only  question  can  be  as  to 
the  expediency  and  the  justice.  At  present  there  is  no  in- 
ternational copyright  between  England  and  the  United 
States,  and  there  is  none  because  the  States  have  declined 
to  sanction  any  such  law.  It  is  known  by  all  who  are  con- 
cerned in  the  matter  on  either  side  of  the  water  that  as  far 
as  Great  Britain  is  concerned  such  a  law  would  meet  with 
no  impediment. 

Therefore  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  legislators  of  the 
States  think  it  expedient  and  just  to  dispense  with  any  such 
law.  I  have  said  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  question,  seeing  that  the  price  of  English 
literature  in  the  States  must  be  most  materially  affected  by 
it.  Without  such  law  the  Americans  are  enabled  to  import 
English  literature  without  paying  for  it.  It  is  open  to  any 
American  publisher  to  reprint  any  work  from  an  English 
copy,  and  to  sell  his  reprints  without  any  permission  ob- 
tained from  the  English  author  or  from  the  English  pub- 
lisher. The  absolute  material  which  the  American  publisher 
sells,  he  takes,  or  can  take,  for  nothing.  The  paper,  ink, 
and  composition  he  supplies  in  the  ordinary  way  of  busi- 
ness ;  but  the  very  matter  which  he  professes  to  sell — of  the 
book  which  is  the  object  of  his  trade — he  is  enabled  to  pos- 
sess himself  of  for  nothing.  If  you,  my  reader,  be  a  popular 
author,  an  American  publisher  will  take  the  choicest  work 
of  your  brain,  and  make  dollars  out  of  it,  selling  thousands 
of  copies  of  it  in  his  country,  whereas  you  can  perhaps 
only  sell  hundreds  of  it  in  your  own ;  and  will  either  give 
you  nothing  for  that  he  takes,  or  else  will  explain  to  you 
that  he  need  give  you  nothing,  and  that  in  paying  you  he 
subjects  himself  to  the  danger  of  seeing  the  property  which 
he  has  bought  taken  again  from  him  by  other  persons.  If 
this  be  so,  that  question  wdiether  or  no  there  shall  be  a  law 
of  international  copyright  between  the  two  countries  cannot 
be  unimportant. 

But  it  may  be  inexpedient  that  there  shall  be  such  a  law 
VOL.  n. — 26 


302 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


It  may  be  considered  well  that,  as  the  influx  of  English 
books  into  America  is  much  greater  than  the  influx  of 
American  books  back  to  England,  the  right  of  obtaining 
such  books  for  nothing  should  be  reserved,  although  the 
country  in  doing  so  robs  its  own  authors  of  the  advantage 
which  should  accrue  to  them  from  the  English  market.  It 
migiit  perhaps  be  thought  anything  but  smart  to  surrender 
such  an  advantage  by  the  passing  of  an  international  copy- 
right bill.  There  are  not  many  trades  in  which  the  trades- 
man can  get  the  chief  of  his  goods  for  nothing;  and  it  may 
be  thought  that  the  advantage  arising  to  the  States  from 
such  an  arrangement  of  circumstances  should  not  be  aban- 
doned. But  how  then  about  the  justice  ?  It  would  seem 
that  the  less  said  upon  that  subject  the  better.  I  have 
heard  no  one  say  that  an  author's  property  in  his  own 
works  should  not,  in  accordance  with  justice,  be  insured  to 
him  in  the  one  country  as  well  as  in  the  other.  I  have 
seen  no  defense  of  the  present  position  of  affairs,  on  the 
score  of  justice.  The  price  of  books  would  be  enhanced 
by  an  international  copyright  law,  and  it  is  well  that  books 
should  be  cheap.  That  is  the  only  argument  used.  So 
would  mutton  be  cheap  if  it  could  be  taken  out  of  a  butch- 
er's shop  for  nothing. 

But  I  absolutely  deny  the  expediency  of  the  present  posi- 
tion of  the  subject,  looking  simply  to  the  material  advant- 
age of  the  American  people  in  the  matter,  and  throwing 
aside  altogether  that  question  of  justice.  I  must  here,  how- 
ever, explain  that  I  bring  no  charge  whatsoever  against  the 
American  publishers.  The  English  author  is  a  victim  in 
their  hands,  but  it  is  by  no  means  their  fault  that  he  is  so. 
As  a  rule,  they  are  willing  to  pay  something  for  the  works 
of  popular  English  writers;  but  in  arranging  as  to  what 
payments  they  can  make,  they  must  of  course  bear  in  mind 
the  fact  that  they  have  no  exclusive  right  whatsoever  in  the 
things  which  they  purchase.  It  is  natural  also  that  they 
should  bear  in  mind,  when  making  their  purchases  and  ar- 
ranging their  prices,  that  they  can  have  the  very  thing  they 
are  buying  without  any  payment  at  all,  if  the  price  asked 
do  not  suit  them.  It  is  not  of  the  publishers  that  I  com- 
plain, or  of  any  advantage  which  they  take,  but  of  the  leg- 
islators of  the  country,  and  of  the  advantage  which  accrues, 
or  is  thought  by  them  to  accrue,  to  the  American  people 
from  the  absence  of  an  international  copyright  law.    It  is 


LITERATURE. 


303 


mean  on  their  part  to  take  such  advantage  if  it  existed; 
and  it  is  foolish  in  them  to  suppose  that  any  such  advantage 
can  accrue.  The  absence  of  any  law  of  copyright  no  doubt 
gives  to  the  American  publisher  the  power  of  reprinting  the 
works  of  English  authors  without  paying  for  them,  seeing 
that  the  English  author  is  undefended.  But  the  American 
publisher  who  brings  out  such  a  reprint  is  equally  unde- 
fended in  his  property;  when  he  shall  have  produced  his 
book,  his  rival  in  the  next  street  may  immediately  reprint 
it  from  him,  and  destroy  the  value  of  his  property  by  under- 
selling him.  It  is  probable  that  the  first  American  pub- 
lisher will  have  made  some  payment  to  the  English  author 
for  the  privilege  of  publishing  tlie  book  honestly,  of  pub- 
lishing it  without  recurrence  to  piracy;  and  in  arranging  his 
price  with  his  customers  he  will  be  of  course  obliged  to 
debit  the  book  with  the  amount  so  paid.  If  the  author 
receive  ten  cents  a  copy  on  every  copy  sold,  the  publisher 
must  add  that  ten  cents  to  the  price  he  charges.  But  he 
cannot  do  this  with  security,  because  the  book  can  be  imme- 
diately reprinted  and  sold  without  any  such  addition  to  the 
price.  The  only  security  which  the  American  publisher  has 
against  the  injury  which  may  be  so  done  to  him  is  the  power 
of  doing  other  injury  in  return.  The  men  who  stand  high 
in  the  trade,  and  who  are  powerful  because  of  the  largeness 
of  their  dealings,  can,  in  a  certain  measure,  secure  them- 
selves in  this  way.  Such  a  firm  would  have  the  power  of 
crushing  a  small  tradesman  who  should  interfere  with  him. 
But  if  the  large  firm  commits  any  such  act  of  injustice,  the 
little  men  in  the  trade  have  no  power  of  setting  themselves 
right  by  counter-injustice.  I  need  hardly  point  out  what 
must  be  the  efi*ect  of  such  a  state  of  things  upon  the  whole 
publishing  trade ;  nor  need  I  say  more  to  prove  that  some 
law  which  shall  regulate  property  in  foreign  copyrights 
would  be  as  expedient  with  reference  to  America  as  it  would 
be  just  toward  England.  But  the  wrong  done  by  America 
to  herself  does  not  rest  here.  It  is  true  that  more  English 
l)ooks  are  read  in  the  States  than  American  books  in  Eng- 
land, but  it  is  equally  true  that  the  literature  of  America  is 
daily  gaining  readers  among  us.  That  injury  to  which  Eng- 
lish authors  are  subjected  from  the  want  of  protection  in 
the  States,  American  authors  suffer  from  the  want  of  pro- 
tection here.  One  con  hardly  believe  that  the  legislators  of 
the  States  would  willingly  place  the  brightest  of  their  own 


304 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


follow-countrymen  in  this  position,  because,  in  the  event  of 
a  copyright  bill  being  passed,  the  balance  of  advantage 
would  seem  to  accrue  to  England. 

Of  the  literature  of  the  United  States,  speaking  of  litera- 
ture in  its  ordinary  sense,  I  do  not  know  that  I  need  say 
much  more.  I  regard  the  literature  of  a  country  as  its 
highest  produce,  believing  it  to  be  more  powerful  in  its  gen- 
eral effect,  and  more  beneficial  in  its  results,  than  either 
statesmanship,  professional  ability,  religious  teaching,  or 
commerce.  And  in  no  part  of  its  national  career  have  the 
United  States  been  so  successful  as  in  this.  I  need  hardly 
explain  that  I  should  commit  a  monstrous  injustice  Avere  I 
to  make  a  comparison  in  this  matter  between  England  and 
America.  Literature  is  the  child  of  leisure  and  wealth.  It 
is  the  produce  of  minds  which  by  a  happy  combination  of 
circumstances  have  been  enabled  to  dispense  with  the  ordi- 
nary cares  of  the  world.  It  can  hardly  be  expected  to  come 
from  a  young  country,  or  from  a  new  and  still  struggling 
people.  Looking  around  at  our  own  magnificent  colonies, 
I  hardly  remember  a  considerable  name  which  they  have 
produced,  except  that  of  my  excellent  old  friend  Sam  Slick. 
Nothing,  therefore,  I  think,  shows  the  settled  greatness  of 
the  people  of  the  States  more  significantly  than  their  firm 
establishment  of  a  national  literature.  This  literature  runs 
over  all  subjects  :  American  authors  have  excelled  in  poetry, 
in  science,  in  history,  in  metaphysics,  in  law,  in  theology, 
and  in  fiction.  They  have  attempted  all,  and  failed  in  none. 
What  Englishman  has  devoted  a  room  to  books,  and  devoted 
no  portion  of  that  room  to  the  productions  of  America? 

But  I  must  say  a  word  of  literature  in  which  I  shall  not 
speak  of  it  in  its  ordinary  sense,  and  shall  yet  speak  of  it 
in  that  sense  which  of  all,  perhaps,  in  the  present  day  should 
be  considered  the  most  ordinary;  I  mean  the  every-day 
periodical  literature  of  the  press.  Most  of  those  who  can 
read,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  read  books ;  but  all  who  can  read  do 
read  newspapers.  Newspapers  in  this  country  are  so  gen- 
eral that  men  cannot  well  live  without  them  ;  but  to  men  and 
to  women  also  in  the  United  States  they  may  be  said  to  be 
the  one  chief  necessary  of  life ;  and  yet  in  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  the  United  States  there  is  not  published  a 
single  newspaper  which  seems  to  me  to  be  worthy  of  praise. 

A  really  good  newspaper— one  excellent  at  all  points — 
would  indeed  be  a  triumph  of  honesty  and  of  art.    Not  only 


LITERATURE. 


305 


is  such  a  publication  much  to  be  desired  in  America,  but  it 
is  still  to  be  desired  in  Great  Britain  also.  I  used,  in  my 
younger  days,  to  think  of  such  a  newspaper  as  a  possible 
publication,  and  in  a  certain  degree  to  look  for  it;  now  I  ex- 
pect it  only  in  my  dreams.  It  should  be  powerful  without 
tyranny,  popular  without  triumph,  political  without  party 
passion,  critical  without  personal  feeling,  right  in  its  state- 
ments and  just  in  its  judgments,  but  right  and  just  without 
pride ;  it  should  be  all  but  omniscient,  but  not  conscious  of 
its  omnipotence ;  it  should  be  moral,  but  never  strait-laced  ; 
it  should  be  well  assured  but  yet  modest;  though  never 
humble,  it  should  be  free  from  boastings.  Above  all  these 
things  it  should  be  readable,  and  above  that  again  it  should 
be  true.  I  used  to  think  that  such  a  newspaper  might  be 
produced,  but  I  now  sadly  acknov^'ledge  to  myself  the  fact 
that  humanity  is  not  capable  of  any  work  so  divine. 

The  newspapers  of  the  States  generally  may  not  only  be 
said  to  have  reached  none  of  the  virtues  here  named,  but  to 
have  fallen  into  all  the  opposite  vices.  In  the  first  place, 
they  are  never  true.  In  requiring  truth  from  a  newspaper 
the  public  should  not  be  anxious  to  strain  at  gnats.  A  state- 
ment setting  forth  that  a  certain  gooseberry  was  five  inches 
in  circumference,  whereas  in  truth  its  girth  was  only  two  and 
a  half,  would  give  me  no  offense.  Nor  w^ould  I  be  offended 
at  being  told  that  Lord  Derby  was  appointed  to  the  pre- 
miership, while  in  truth  the  Queen  had  only  sent  to  his  lord- 
ship, having  as  yet  come  to  no  definite  arrangement.  The 
demand  for  truth  which  may  reasonably  be  made  upon  a 
newspaper  amounts  to  this,  that  nothing  should  be  stated 
not  believed  to  be  true,  and  that  nothing  should  be  stated  as 
to  which  the  truth  is  important  without  adequate  ground 
for  such  belief.  If  a  newspaper  accuse  me  of  swindling,  it 
is  not  sufficient  that  the  writer  believe  me  to  be  a  windier. 
He  should  have  ample  and  sufficient  ground  for  such  belief, 
or  else  in  making  such  a  statement  he  will  write  falsely.  In 
our  private  life  we  all  recognize  the  fact  that  this  is  so.  It 
is  understood  that  a  man  is  not  a  whit  the  less  a  slanderer 
because  he  believes  the  slander  which  he  promulgates.  But 
it  seems  to  me  that  this  is  not  sufficiently  recognized  by 
many  who  write  for  the  public  press.  Evil  things  are  said, 
and  are  probably  believed  by  the  writers ;  they  are  said  with 
that  special  skill  for  which  newspaper  writers  have  in  our 
days  become  so  conspicuous,  defying  alike  redress  by  law  or 
VOL.  II.— 26* 


306 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


redress  by  argument ;  but  they  are  said  too  often  falsely.  The 
words  are  not  measured  when  they  are  written,  and  they  are 
allowed  to  go  forth  without  any  sufficient  inquiry  into  their 
truth.  But  if  there  is  any  ground  for  such  complaint  here  in 
England,  that  ground  is  multiplied  ten  times — tweuty  times — 
in  the  States.  This  is  not  only  shown  in  the  abuse  of  individ- 
uals, in  abuse  which  is  as  violent  as  it  is  perpetual,  but  in 
the  treatment  of  every  subject  which  is  handled.  All  idea  of  \ 
truth  has  been  thrown  overboard.  It  seems  to  be  admitted 
that  the  only  object  is  to  produce  a  sensation,  and  that  it  is 
admitted  by  both  writer  and  reader  that  sensation  and  ve- 
racity are  incompatible.  Falsehood  has  become  so  much  a 
matter  of  course  with  American  newspapers  that  it  has 
almost  ceased  to  be  falsehood.  Nobody  thinks  me  a  liar 
because  I  deny  that  I  am  at  home  when  I  am  in  my  study. 
The  nature  of  the  arrangement  is  generally  understood.  So 
also  is  it  with  the  American  newspapers. 

Bat  xVmerican  newspapers  are  also  unreadable.  It  is  very 
bad  that  they  should  be  false,  but  it  is  very  surprising  that 
they  should  be  dull.  Looking  at  the  general  intelligence 
of  the  people,  one  would  have  thought  that  a  readable 
newspaper,  put  out  with  all  pleasant  appurtenances  of  clear 
type,  good  paper,  and  good  internal  arrangement,  would 
have  been  a  thing  specially  within  their  reach.  But  they  have 
failed  in  every  detail.  Though  their  papers  are  always  loaded 
with  sensation  headings,  there  are  seldom  sensation  para- 
graphs to  follow.  The  paragraphs  do  not  fit  the  headings. 
Either  they  cannot  be  found,  or  if  found,  they  seem  to  have 
escaped  from  their  proper  column  to  some  distant  and  remote 
portion  of  the  sheet.  One  is  led  to  presume  that  no  American 
editor  has  any  plan  in  the  composition  of  his  newspaper.  I 
never  know  whether  I  have  as  yet  got  to  the  very  heart's  core 
of  the  daily  journal,  or  whether  I  am  still  to  go  on  searching 
for  that  heart's  core.  Alas  !  it  too  often  happens  that  there  is 
no  heart's  core.  The  whole  thing  seems  to  have  been  put  out 
at  hap-hazard.  And  then  the  very  writing  is  in  itself  below 
mediocrity  ;  as  though  a  power  of  expression  in  properly  ar- 
ranged language  was  not  required  by  a  newspaper  editor, 
either  as  regards  himself  or  as  regards  his  subordinates.  One 
is  driven  to  suppose  that  the  writers  for  the  daily  press  are  not 
chosen  with  any  view  to  such  capability.  A  man  ambitious 
of  being  on  the  staff  of  an  American  newspaper  should  be 
capable  of  much  work,  should  be  satisfied  with  small  pay, 


LITERATURE. 


307 


slioukl  be  indifferent  to  the  world's  good  usage,  should  be 
rough,  ready,  and  of  long  sufferance ;  but,  above  all,  he 
should  be  smart.  The  type  of  almost  all  American  news- 
papers is  wretched — I  think  I  may  say  of  all — so  wretched 
that  that  alone  forbids  one  to  hope  for  pleasure  in  reading 
them.  They  are  ill  written,  ill  printed,  and  ill  arranged, 
and  in  fact  are  not  readable.  They  are  bought,  glanced  at, 
and  thrown  away. 

They  are  full  of  boastings,  not  boastings  simply  as  to 
their  country,  their  town,  or  their  party,  but  of  boastings 
as  to  themselves.  And  yet  they  possess  no  self-assurance. 
It  is  always  evident  that  they  neither  trust  themselves,  nor 
expect  to  be  trusted.  They  have  made  no  approach  to 
that  omniscience  which  constitutes  the  great  marvel  of  our 
own  daily  press  ;  but  finding  it  necessary  to  write  as  though 
they  possessed  it,  they  fall  into  blunders  which  are  almost 
as  marvelous.  Justice  and  right  judgment  are  out  of  the 
question  with  them.  A  political  party  end  is  always  in 
view,  and  political  party  warfare  in  America  admits  of  any 
weapons.  No  newspaper  in  America  is  really  powerful  or 
popular;  and  yet  they  are  tyrannical  and  overbearing. 
The  New  York  Herald  has,  I  believe,  the  largest  sale  of 
any  daily  newspaper;  but  it  is  absolutely  without  politi- 
cal power,  and  in  these  times  of  war  has  truckled  to  the 
government  more  basely  than  any  other  paper.  It  has  an 
enormous  sale,  but  so  far  is  it  from  having  achieved  popu- 
larity that  no  man  on  any  side  ever  speaks  a  good  word 
for  it.  All  American  newspapers  deal  in  politics  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course;  but  their  politics  have  ever  regard  to  men 
and  not  to  measures.  Vituperation  is  their  natural  politi- 
cal weapon;  but  since  the  President's  ministers  have  as- 
sumed the  power  of  stopping  newspapers  which  are  offensive 
to  them,  they  have  shown  that  they  can  descend  below 
vituperation  to  eulogy. 

I  shall  be  accused  of  using  very  strong  language  against 
the  newspaper  press  of  America.  I  can  only  say  that  I  do 
not  know  how  to  make  that  language  too  strong.  Of  course 
there  are  newspapers  as  to  which  the  editors  and  writers 
may  justly  feel  that  my  remarks,  if  applied  to  them,  are  un- 
merited. In  writing  on  such  a  subject,  I  can  only  deal  with 
the  whole  as  a  whole.  During  my  stay  in  the  country,  I 
did  my  best  to  make  myself  acquainted  with  the  nature  of 
its  newspapers,  knowing  in  how  great  a  degree  its  popula- 


308 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


tion  depends  on  them  for  its  daily  store  of  information ;  for 
newspapers  in  the  States  of  America  have  a  much  wider,  or 
rather  closer  circulation,  than  they  do  with  us.  Every  man 
and  almost  every  woman  sees  a  newspaper  daily.  They 
are  very  cheap,  and  are  brought  to  every  man's  hand,  with- 
out trouble  to  himself,  at  every  turn  that  he  takes  in  his 
day's  work.  It  would  be  much  for  the  advantage  of  the 
country  that  they  should  be  good  of  their  kind ;  but,  if  I 
am  able  to  form  any  judgment  on  the  matter,  they  are  not 
good. 


CHAPTER  XYL 

CONCLUSION. 

In  one  of  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  volume — now  some 
seven  or  eight  chapters  past — I  brought  myself  on  my 
travels  back  to  Boston.  It  was  not  that  my  way  home- 
ward lay  by  that  route,  seeing  that  my  fate  required  me  to 
sail  from  New  York;  but  I  could  not  leave  the  country 
without  revisiting  my  friends  in  Massachusetts.  I  have 
told  how  I  was  there  in  the  sleighing  time,  and  how  pleasant 
were  the  mingled  slush  and  frost  of  the  snowy  winter.  In 
the  morning  the  streets  would  be  hard  and  crisp  and  the 
stranger  would  surely  fall  if  he  were  not  prepared  to  walk 
on  glaciers.  In  the  afternoon  he  would  be  wading  through 
rivers,  and,  if  properly  armed  at  all  points  with  India- 
rubber,  would  enjoy  the  rivers  as  he  waded.  But  the  air 
would  be  always  kindly,  and  the  east  wind  there,  if  it  was 
east  as  I  was  told,  had  none  of  that  power  of  dominion 
which  makes  us  all  so  submissive  to  its  behests  in  London. 
For  myself,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  real  east  wind  blows 
elsewhere. 

And  when  the  snow  went  in  Boston  I  went  with  it.  The 
evening  before  I  left  I  watched  them  as  they  carted  away 
tlic  dirty  uncouth  blocks  which  had  been  broken  up  with 
pickaxes  in  Washington  Street,  and  was  melancholy  as  I 
reflected  that  I  too  should  no  longer  be  known  in  the 
streets.  My  weeks  in  Boston  had  not  been  very  many,  but 
nevertheless  there  were  haunts  there  which  I  knew  as  though 


CONCLUSION. 


300 


my  feet  had  trodden  them  for  years.  There  were  houses 
to  which  I  could  have  gone  with  my  eyes  blindfold  ;  doors 
of  which  the  latches  were  familiar  to  my  hands ;  faces  which 
I  knew  so  well  that  they  had  ceased  to  put  on  for  me  the 
fictitious  smiles  of  courtesy.  Faces,  houses,  doors,  and 
haunts, — where  are  they  now  ?  For  me  they  are  as  though 
they  had  never  been.  They  are  among  the  things  which 
one  would  fain  remember  as  one  remembers  a  dream.  Look 
back  on  it  as  a  vision  and  it  is  all  pleasant;  but  if  you 
realize  your  vision  and  believe  your  dream  to  be  a  fact,  all 
your  pleasure  is  obliterated  by  regret. 

I  know  that  I  shall  never  again  be  at  Boston,  and  that  I 
have  said  that  about  the  Americans  which  would  make  me 
unwelcome  as  a  guest  if  I  were  there.  It  is  in  this  that  my 
regret  consists;  for  this  reason  that  I  would  wish  to  re- 
member so  many  social  hours  as  though  they  had  been 
passed  in  sleep.  They  who  will  expect  blessings  from  me, 
will  say  among  themselves  that  I  have  cursed  them.  As  I 
read  the  pages  which  I  have  written,  I  feel  that  words  which 
I  intended  for  blessings  when  I  prepared  to  utter  them  have 
gone  nigh  to  turn  themselves  into  curses. 

I  have  ever  admired  the  United  States  as  a  nation.  I 
have  loved  their  liberty,  their  prowess,  their  intelligence, 
and  their  progress.  I  have  sympathized  with  a  people 
who  themselves  have  had  no  sympathy  with  passive  security 
and  inaction.  I  have  felt  confidence  in  them,  and  have 
known,  as  it  were,  that  their  industry  must  enable  them  to 
succeed  as  a  people  while  their  freedom  would  insure  to 
them  success  as  a  nation.  With  these  convictions  I  went 
among  them  wishing  to  write  of  them  good  words — words 
which  might  be  pleasant  for  them  to  read,  while  they  might 
assist  perhaps  in  producing  a  true  impression  of  them  here 
at  home.  But  among  my  good  words  there  are  so  many 
which  are  bitter,  that  I  fear  I  shall  have  failed  in  my  object 
as  regards  them.  And  it  seems  to  me,  as  I  read  once  more 
my  own  pages,  that  in  saying  evil  things  of  my  friends  I 
have  used  language  stronger  than  I  intended ;  whereas  I 
have  omitted  to  express  myself  with  emphasis  when  I  have 
attempted  to  say  good  things.  Why  need  I  have  told  of 
the  mud  of  Washington,  or  have  exposed  the  nakedness  of 
Cairo  ?  Why  did  I  speak  with  such  eager  enmity  of  those 
poor  women  in  the  New  York  cars,  who  never  injured  me, 
now  that  I  think  of  it  ?    Ladies  of  New  York,  as  I  write 


310 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


this,  the  words  which  were  written  among  you  are  printed 
and  cannot  be  expunged;  but  I  tender  to  you  my  apologies 
from  my  home  in  England.  And  that  Yan  Wyck  Commit- 
tee— might  I  not  have  left  those  contractors  to  be  dealt 
with  by  their  own  Congress,  seeing  that  that  Congress 
committee  was  by  no  means  inclined  to  spare  them  ?  I 
might  have  kept  my  pages  free  from  gall,  and  have  sent  my 
sheets  to  the  press  unhurt  by  the  conviction  that  I  was 
hurting  those  who  had  dealt  kindly  by  me !  But  what 
then?  Was  any  people  ever  truly  served  by  eulogy;  or 
an  honest  cause  furthered  by  undue  praise  ? 

0  my  friends  with  thin  skins — and  here  I  protest  that  a 
thick  skin  is  a  fault  not  to  be  forgiven  in  a  man  or  a  nation, 
whereas  a  thin  skin  is  in  itself  a  merit,  if  only  the  wearer  of 
it  will  be  the  master  and  not  the  slave  of  his  skin — 0  my 
friends  with  thin  skins,  ye  whom  I  call  my  cousins  and  love 
as  brethren,  will  ye  not  forgive  me  these  harsh  words  that  I 
have  spoken  ?  They  have  been  spoken  in  love — with  a  true 
love,  a  brotherly  love,  a  love  that  has  never  been  absent 
from  the  heart  while  the  brain  was  coining  them.  I  had  my 
task  to  do,  and  I  could  not  take  the  pleasant  and  ignore  the 
painful.  It  may  perhaps  be  that  as  a  friend  I  had  better 
not  have  written  either  good  or  bad.  But  no  1  To  say 
that  would  indeed  be  to  speak  calumny  of  your  country.  A 
man  may  write  of  you  truly,  and  yet  write  that  which  you 
would  read  with  pleasure ;  only  that  your  skins  are  so  thin. 
The  streets  of  Washington  are  muddy  and  her  ways  are 
desolate.  The  nakedness  of  Cairo  is  very  naked.  And 
those  ladies  of  New  York — is  it  not  to  be  confessed  that 
they  are  somewhat  imperious  in  their  demands  ?  As  for  the 
Yan  Wyck  Committee,  have  I  not  repeated  the  tale  which 
you  have  told  yourselves  ?  And  is  it  not  well  that  such 
tales  should  be  told  ? 

And  yet  ye  will  not  forgive  me ;  because  your  skins  are 
thin,  and  because  the  praise  of  others  is  the  breath  of  your 
nostrils. 

1  do  not  know  that  an  American  as  an  individual  is  more 
thin  skinned  than  an  Englishman  ;  but  as  the  representative 
of  a  nation  it  may  almost  be  said  of  him  that  he  has  no  skin 
at  all.  Any  touch  comes  at  once  upon  the  net-work  of  his 
nerves  and  puts  in  operation  all  his  organs  of  feeling  with 
the  violence  of  a  blow.  And  for  this  peculiarity  he  has 
been  made  the  mark  of  much  ridicule.    It  shows  itself  in 


CONCLUSION. 


311 


two  ways  :  either  by  extreme  displeasure  when  anything  is 
said  disrespectful  of  his  country,  or  by  the  strong  eulogy 
with  which  he  is  accustomed  to  speak  of  his  own  institutions 
and  of  those  of  his  countrymen  whom  at  the  moment  he  may 
chance  to  hold  in  high  esteem.  The  manner  in  which  this 
is  done  is  often  ridiculous.  "  Sir,  what  do  you  think  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  Brick  ?  Mr.  Jefferson  Brick,  sir,  is  one  of  our 
most  remarkable  men."  And  again  :  "  Do  you  like  our  in- 
stitutions, sir  ?  Do  you  find  that  philanthropy,  religion, 
philosophy  and  the  social  virtues  are  cultivated  on  a  scale 
commensurate  with  the  unequaled  liberty  and  political  ad- 
vancement of  the  nation  ?"  There  is  something  absurd  in 
such  a  mode  of  address  when  it  is  repeated  often.  But  hero 
worship  and  love  of  country  are  not  absurd  ;  and  do  not 
these  addresses  show  capacity  for  hero  worship  and  an  apt- 
itude for  the  love  of  country  ?  Jefferson  Brick  may  not  be 
a  hero  ;  but  a  capacity  for  such  worship  is  something.  In- 
deed the  capacity  is  everything,  for  the  need  of  a  hero  will 
produce  a  hero.  And  it  is  the  same  with  that  love  of 
country.  A  people  that  are  proud  of  their  country  will  see 
that  there  is  something  in  their  country  to  justify  their 
pride.  Do  we  not  all  of  us  feel  assured  by  the  intense  na- 
tionality of  an  American  that  he  will  not  desert  his  nation 
in  the  hour  of  her  need  ?  I  feel  that  assurance  respecting 
them ;  and  at  those  moments  in  which  I  am  moved  to 
laughter  by  the  absurdities  of  their  addresses  to  me  I  feel 
it  the  strongest. 

I  left  Boston  with  the  snow,  and  returning  to  New  York 
found  that  the  streets  there  were  dry  and  that  the  winter 
was  nearly  over.  As  I  had  passed  through  New  York  to 
Boston  the  streets  had  been  by  no  means  dry.  The  snow 
had  lain  in  small  mountains  over  which  the  omnibuses  made 
their  way  down  Broadway,  till  at  the  bottom  of  that  thorough- 
fare, between  Trinity  Church  and  Bowling  Green,  alp  be- 
came piled  upon  alp,  and  all  traffic  was  full  of  danger.  The 
cursed  love  of  gain  still  took  men  to  Wall  Street,  but  they 
had  to  fight  their  way  thither  through  physical  difficulties 
which  must  have  made  even  the  state  of  the  money  market 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  them.  They  do  not  seem  to  me 
to  manage  the  winter  in  New  York  so  well  as  they  do  in 
Boston,  But  now,  on  my  last  return  thither,  the  alps  were 
gone,  the  roads  were  clear,  and  one  could  travel  through 
the  city  with  no  other  impediment  than  those  of  treading  on 


312 


NOIITH  AMERICA. 


womeu's  dresses  if  one  walked,  or  having  to  look  after  wo- 
men's band-boxes  and  pay  their  fares  and  take  their  change 
if  one  used  the  omnibuses. 

And  now  had  come  the  end  of  my  adventure,  and  as  I  set 
my  foot  once  more  upon  the  deck  of  the  Cunard  steamer,  I 
felt  that  my  work  was  done  ;  whether  it  were  done  ill  or 
well,  or  whether  indeed  any  approach  to  the  doing  of  it  had 
been  attained,  all  had  been  done  that  I  could  accomplish. 
No  further  opportunity  remained  to  me  of  seeing,  hearing, 
or  of  speaking.  I  had  come  out  thither,  having  resolved  to 
learn  a  little  that  I  might  if  possible  teach  that  little  to 
others  ;  and  now  the  lesson  was  learned,  or  must  remain  un- 
learned. But  in  carrying  out  my  resolution  I  had  gradually 
risen  in  my  ambition,  and  had  mounted  from  one  stage  of 
inquiry  to  another,  till  at  last  I  had  found  myself  burdened 
with  the  task  of  ascertaining  whether  or  no  the  Americans 
were  doing  their  work  as  a  nation  well  or  ill ;  and  now,  if 
ever,  I  must  be  prepared  to  put  forth  the  result  of  my  in- 
quiry. As  I  walked  up  and  down  the  deck  of  the  steamboat 
I  confess  I  felt  that  I  had  been  somewhat  arrogant. 

I  had  been  a  few  days  over  six  months  in  the  States, 
and  I  was  engaged  in  writing  a  book  of  such  a  nature  that 
a  man  might  well  engage  himself  for  six  years,  or  perhaps 
for  sixty,  in  obtaining  the  materials  for  it.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  form  of  government,  or  legislature,  or  man- 
ners of  the  people  as  to  which  I  had  not  taken  upon  my- 
self to  say  something.  I  was  professing  to  understand  their 
strenhth  and  their  weakness  ;  and  was  daring  to  censure 
their  faults  and  to  eulogize  their  virtues.  "Who  is  he," 
an  American  would  say,  "that  he  comes  and  judges  us? 
His .judgmenf  is  nothing."  "Who  is  he,"  an  Englishman 
would  say,  "that  he  comes  and  teaches  us?  His  teaching 
is  of  no  value." 

In  answer  to  this  I  have  but  a  small  plea  to  make — I 
have  done  my  best.  I  have  nothing  "extenuated,  and  have 
set  down  naught  in  malice."  I  do  feel  that  my  volumes 
have  blown  themselves  out  into  proportions  greater  than 
I  had  intended;  greater  not  in  mass  of  pages,  but  in  the 
matter  handled.  I  am  frequently  addressing  my  own  muse, 
who  I  am  well  aware  is  not  Clio,  and  asking  her  whither 
she  is  wending.  "  Cease,  thou  wrong-headed  one,  to  med- 
dle with  these  mysteries."  I  appeal  to  her  frequently,  but 
ever  in  vain.    One  cannot  drive  one's  muse,  nor  yet  always 


CONCLUSION. 


313 


lead  her.  Of  the  various  women  with  which  a  man  is 
blessed,  his  muse  is  by  no  means  the  least  difficult  to 
manage. 

But  again  I  put  in  my  slight  plea.  In  doing  as  I  have 
done,  I  have  at  least  done  my  best.  I  have  endeavored  to 
judge  without  prejudice,  and  to  hear  with  honest  ears  and 
to  see  with  honest  eyes.  The  subject,  moreover,  on  which  I 
have  written  is  one  which,  though  great,  is  so  universal  in 
its  bearings  that  it  may  be  said  to  admit,  without  impro- 
priety, of  being  handled  by  the  unlearned  as  well  as  the 
learned;  by  those  who  have  grown  gray  in  the  study  of  con- 
stitutional lore,  and  by  those  who  have  simply  looked  on 
at  the  government  of  men  as  we  all  look  on  at  those  mat- 
ters which  daily  surround  us.  There  are  matters  as  to 
which  a  man  should  never  take  a  pen  in  hand  unless  he  has 
given  to  them  much  labor.  The  botanist  must  have  learned 
to  trace  the  herbs  and  flowers  before  he  can  presume  to  tell 
us  how  God  has  formed  them.  But  the  death  of  Hector  is 
a  fit  subject  for  a  boy's  verses,  though  Homer  also  sang  of 
it.  I  feel  that  there  is  scope  for  a  book  on  the  United 
States  form  of  government  as  it  was  founded,  and  as  it  has 
since  framed  itself,  which  might  do  honor  to  the  life-long 
studies  of  some  one  of  those  great  constitutional  pundits 
whom  we  have  among  us;  but,  nevertheless,  the  plain 
words  of  a  man  who  is  no  pundit  need  not  disgrace  the 
subject,  if  they  be  honestly  written,  and  if  he  who  writes 
them  has  in  his  heart  an  honest  love  of  liberty.  Such  were 
my  thoughts  as  I  walked  the  deck  of  the  Cunard  steamer. 
Then  I  descended  to  my  cabin,  settled  my  luggage,  and 
prepared  a  table  for  the  continuance  of  my  work.  It  was 
fourteen  days  from  that  time  before  I  reached  London,  but 
the  fourteen  days  to  me  were  not  unpleasant.  The  demon 
of  sea-sickness  spares  me  always,  and  if  I  can  find  on  board 
one  or  two  who  are  equally  fortunate — who  can  eat  with 
me,  drink  with  me,  and  talk  with  me — I  do  not  know  that 
a  passage  across  the  Atlantic  is  by  any  means  a  terrible  evil 
to  me. 

In  finishing  these  volumes  after  the  fashion  in  which  they 
have  been  written  throughout,  I  feel  that  I  am  bound  to 
express  a  fixed  opinion  on  two  or  three  points,  and  that  if 
I  have  not  enabled  myself  to  do  so,  I  have  traveled  through 
the  country  in  vain.  I  am  bound  by  the  very  nature  of  my 
undertaking  to  say  whether,  according  to  such  view  as  I 
VOL.  IL — 27 


814 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


have  enabled  myself  to  take  of  them,  the  Americans  have 
succeeded  as  a  nation  politically  and  socially;  and  in  doing 
this  I  ought  to  be  able  to  explain  how  far  slavery  has  inter- 
fered with  such  success.  I  am  bound  also,  writing  at  the 
present  moment,  to  express  some  opinion  as  to  the  result 
of  this  war,  and  to  declare  whether  the  North  or  the  South 
may  be  expected  to  be  victorious — explaining  in  some  rough 
way  what  may  be  the  results  of  such  victory,  and  how  such 
results  will  affect  the  question  of  slavery ;  and  I  shall  leave 
my  task  unfinished  if  I  do  not  say  what  may  be  the  possible 
chances  of  future  quarrel  between  England  and  the  States. 
That  there  has  been  and  is  much  hot  blood  and  angry  feel- 
ing, no  man  doubts ;  but  such  angry  feeling  has  existed 
among  many  nations  without  any  probability  of  war.  In  this 
case,  with  reference  to  this  ill  will  that  lias  certainly  estab- 
lished itself  bctv/een  us  and  that  other  people,  is  there 
anv  need  that  it  should  be  satisfied  by  war  and  allayed  by 
blood  ? 

No  one,  I  think,  can  doubt  that  the  founders  of  the  great 
American  Commonwealth  made  an  error  in  omitting  to 
provide  some  means  for  the  gradual  extinction  of  slavery 
throughout  the  States.  That  error  did  not  consist  in  any 
liking  for  slavery.  There  was  no  feeling  in  favor  of  slavery 
on  the  part  of  those  who  made  themselves  prominent  at  the 
political  birth  of  the  nation.  I  think  I  shall  be  justified  in 
saying  that  at  that  time  the  opinion  that  slavery  is  itself  a 
good  thing,  that  it  is  an  institution  of  divine  origin  and  fit 
to  be  perpetuated  among  men  as  in  itself  excellent,  had  not 
found  that  favor  in  the  Southern  States  in  which  it  is  now 
held.  Jefferson,  who  has  been  regarded  as  the  leader  of  the 
Southern  or  Democratic  party,  has  left  ample  testimony  that 
he  regarded  slavery  as  an  evil.  It  is,  I  think,  true  that  he 
gave  such  testimony  much  more  freely  when  he  was  speak- 
ing or  writing  as  a  private  individual  than  he  ever  allowed 
himself  to  do  when  his  words  were  armed  with  the  weight 
of  public  authority.  But  it  is  clear  that  on  the  whole  he 
was  opposed  to  slavery,  and  I  think  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  he  and  his  party  looked  forward  to  a  natural  death  for 
that  evil.  Calculation  was  made  that  slavery  when  not 
recruited  afresh  from  Africa  could  not  maintain  its  numbers, 
and  that  gradually  the  negro  population  would  become  ex- 
tinct. This  was  the  error  made.  It  was  easier  to  look 
forward  to  such  a  result  and  hope  for  such  an  end  of  the 


CONCLUSION. 


315 


difficulty,  than  to  extinguish  slavery  by  a  great  political 
movement,  which  must  doubtless  have  been  difficult  and 
costly.  The  Northern  States  got  rid  of  slavery  by  the 
operation  of  their  separate  legislatures,  some  at  one  date 
and  some  at  others.  The  slaves  were  less  numerous  in  the 
North  than  in  the  South,  and  the  feeling  adverse  to  slaves 
was  stronger  in  the  North  than  in  the  South.  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,  which  now  separates  slave  soil  from  free  soil, 
merely  indicates  the  position  in  the  country  at  which  the 
balance  turned.  Maryland  and  Virginia  were  not  inclined 
to  make  great  immediate  sacrifices  for  the  manumission  of 
their  slaves;  but  the  gentlemen  of  those  States  did  not 
think  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution  destined  to 
flourish  forever  as  a  blessing  in  their  land. 

The  maintenance  of  slavery  was,  I  think,  a  political  mis- 
take— a  political  mistake,  not  because  slavery  is  politically 
wrong,  but  because  the  politicians  of  the  day  made  erroneous 
calculations  as  to  the  probability  of  its  termination.  So  the 
income  tax  may  be  a  political  blunder  with  us — not  because 
it  is  in  itself  a  bad  tax,  but  because  those  who  imposed  it 
conceived  that  they  were  imposing  it  for  a  year  or  two, 
whereas,  now,  men  do  not  expect  to  see  the  end  of  it.  The 
maintenance  of  slavery  was  a  political  mistake ;  and  I  can- 
not think  that  the  Americans  in  any  v>^ay  lessen  the  weight 
of  their  own  error  by  protesting,  as  they  occasionally  do, 
that  slavery  was  a  legacy  made  over  to  them  from  England. 
They  might  as  v/ell  say  that  traveling  in  carts  without 
springs,  at  the  rate  of  three  miles  an  hour,  was  a  legacy 
made  over  to  them  by  England.  On  that  matter  of  travel- 
ing they  have  not  been  contented  with  the  old  habits  left 
to  them,  but  have  gone  ahead  and  made  railroads.  In 
creating  those  railways  the  merit  is  due  to  them;  and  so 
also  is  the  demerit  of  maintaining  those  slaves. 

That  demerit  and  that  mistake  have  doubtless  brought 
upon  the  Americans  the  grievances  of  their  present  posi- 
tion ;  and  will,  as  I  think,  so  far  be  accompanied  by  ultimate 
punishment  that  they  will  be  the  immediate  means  of  caus- 
ing the  first  disintegration  of  their  nation.  I  will  leave  it 
to  the  Americans  themselves  to  say  whether  such  disinte- 
gration must  necessarily  imply  that  they  have  failed  in  their 
political  undertaking.  The  most  loyal  citizens  of  the 
Northern  States  would  have  declared  a  month  or  two  since 
— and  for  aught  I  know  would  declare  now — that  any  dis- 


310 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


integration  of  the  States  implied  absolute  failure.  One 
stripe  erased  from  the  banner,  one  star  lost  from  the  firma- 
ment, would  entail  upon  them  all  the  disgrace  of  national 
defeat  I  It  had  been  their  boast  that  they  would  always 
advance,  never  retreat.  They  had  looked  forward  to  add 
ever  State  upon  State,  and  Territory  to  Territory,  till 
the  whole  continent  should  be  bound  together  in  the  same 
union.  To  go  back  from  that  now,  to  fall  into  pieces  and 
be  divided,  to  become  smaller  in  the  eyes  of  the  nations,  to 
be  absolutely  halfed,  as  some  would  say  of  such  division, 
would  be  national  disgrace,  and  would  amount  to  political 
failure.  "Let  us  fight  for  the  whole,"  such  men  said,  and 
probably  do  say.    "To  lose  anything  is  to  lose  all  1" 

But  the  citizens  of  the  States  who  speak  and  think  thus, 
though  they  may  be  the  most  loyal,  are  perhaps  not  politi- 
cally the  most  wise.  And  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  that 
defiant  claim  of  every  star,  that  resolve  to  possess  every 
stripe  upon  the  banner,  had  become  somewhat  less  general 
when  I  was  leaving  the  country  than  I  had  found  it  to  be 
at  the  time  of  my  arrival  there.  While  things  were  going 
badly  with  the  North,  while  there  was  no  tale  of  any  battle 
to  be  told  except  of  those  at  Bull's  Run  and  Springfield,  no 
Northern  man  would  admit  a  hint  that  secession  might  ulti- 
mately prevail  in  Georgia  or  Alabama.  But  the  rebels  had 
been  driven  out  of  Missouri  when  I  was  leaving  the  States, 
they  had  retreated  altogether  from  Kentucky,  having  been 
beaten  in  one  engagement  there,  and  from  a  great  portion 
of  Tennessee,  having  been  twice  beaten  in  that  State.  The 
coast  of  North  Carolina,  and  many  points  of  the  Southern 
coast,  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Northern  army,  while  the 
army  of  the  South  was  retreating  from  all  points  into  the 
center  of  their  country.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  strat- 
cgetical  merits  or  demerits  of  the  Northern  generals,  it  is  at 
any  rate  certain  that  their  apparent  successes  were  greedily 
welcomed  by  the  people,  and  created  an  idea  that  things 
were  going  well  with  the  cause.  And  as  all  this  took  place, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  heard  less  about  the  necessary  integ- 
rity of  the  old  flag.  While  as  yet  they  were  altogether 
unsuccessful,  they  were  minded  to  make  no  surrender.  But 
with  their  successes  came  the  feeling,  that  in  taking  much 
they  might  perhaps  allow  themselves  to  yield  something. 
This  was  clearly  indicated  by  the  message  sent  to  Congress 
by  the  President,  in  February,  1862,  in  which  he  suggested 


CONCLUSION. 


31^ 


that  Congress  should  make  arrangements  for  the  purchase 

cf  the  slaves  in  the  border  States ;  so  that  in  the  event  of 
secession — accomplished  secession — in  the  Gulf  States,  the 
course  of  those  border  States  might  be  made  clear  for  them. 
They  might  hesitate  as  to  going  willingly  with  the  Xorth, 
while  possessing  slaves,  as  to  sitting  themselves  peaceably 
down  as  a  small  slave  adjunct  to  a  vast  free-soil  nation,  see- 
ing that  their  property  would  always  be  in  peril.  Under 
such  circumstances  a  slave  adjunct  to  the  free-soil  nation 
would  not  long  be  possible.  But  if  it  could  be  shown  to 
them  that  in  the  event  of  their  adhering  to  the  North  com- 
pensation would  be  forthcoming,  then,  indeed,  the  difficulty 
in  arranging  an  advantageous  line  between  the  two  future 
nations  might  be  considerably  modified.  This  message  of 
the  President's  was  intended  to  signify  that  secession  on 
favorable  terms  might  be  regarded  by  the  North  as  not 
undesirable.  Moderate  men  were  beginning  to  whisper 
that,  after  all,  the  Gulf  States  were  no  source  either  of 
national  wealth  or  of  national  honor.  Had  there  not  been 
enough  at  Washington  of  cotton  lords  and  cotton  laws  ? 
When  I  have  suggested  that  no  Senator  from  Georgia  would 
ever  again  sit  in  the  United  States  Senate,  American  gen- 
tlemen have  received  my  remark  with  a  slight  demur,  and 
have  then  proceeded  to  argue  the  case.  Six  months  before 
they  would  have  declared  against  me  and  not  have  argued. 

I  will  leave  it  to  Americans  themselves  to  say  whether 
that  disintegration  of  the  States  will,  should  it  ever  be 
realized,  imply  that  they  have  failed  in  their  political  under- 
taking. If  they  do  not  protest  that  it  argues  failure,  I  do 
not  think  that  their  feelings  will  be  hurt  by  such  protesta- 
tions on  the  part  of  others.  I  have  said  that  the  blunder 
made  by  the  founders  of  the  nation  with  regard  to  slavery 
has  brought  with  it  this  secession  us  its  punishment.  But 
such  punishments  come  generally  upon  nations  as  great 
mercies.  Ireland's  famine  was  the  punishment  of  her  im- 
prudence and  idleness,  but  it  has  given  to  her  prosperity 
and  progress.  And  indeed,  to  speak  with  more  logical  cor- 
rectness, the  famine  was  no  punishment  to  Ireland,  nor  will 
secession  be  a  punishment  to  the  Northern  States.  In  the 
long  result,  step  will  have  gone  on  after  step,  and  effect  will 
have  followed  cause,  till  the  American  people  will  at  last 
acknowledge  that  all  these  matters  have  been  arranged  for 
their  advantage  and  promotion.  It  may  be  that  a  nation 
VOL.  IL — 2t* 


318  NORTH  AMERICA. 

now  and  then  goes  to  the  wall,  and  that  things  go  from  bad 
to  worse  with  a  large  people.  It  has  been  so  with  various 
nations,  and  with  many  people  since  history  was  first  written. 
But  when  it  has  been  so,  the  people  thus  punished  have  been 
idle  and  bad.  They  have  not  only  done  evil  in  their  genera- 
tion, but  have  done  more  evil  than  good,  and  have  contrib- 
uted their  power  to  the  injury  rather  than  to  the  improve- 
ment of  mankind.  It  may  be  that  this  or  that  national 
fault  may  produce  or  seem  to  produce  some  consequent 
calamity.  But  the  balance  of  good  or  evil  things  which 
fall  to  a  people's  share  will  indicate  with  certainty  their 
average  conduct  as  a  nation.  The  one  will  be  the  certain 
sequence  of  the  other.  If  it  be  that  the  Americans  of  the 
Northern  States  have  done  well  in  their  time^  that  they  have 
assisted  in  the  progress  of  the  world,  and  made  things  bet- 
ter for  mankind  rather  than  worse,  then  they  will  come  out 
of  this  trouble  without  eventual  injury.  That  which  came 
in  the  guise  of  punishment  for  a  special  fault,  will  be  a  part 
of  the  reward  resulting  from  good  conduct  in  the  general. 
And  as  to  this  matter  of  slavery,  in  which  I  think  that  they 
have  blundered  both  politically  and  morally,  has  it  not  been 
found  impossible  hitherto  for  them  to  cleanse  their  hands  of 
that  taint  ?  But  that  which  they  could  not  do  for  them- 
selves the  course  of  events  is  doing  for  them.  If  secession 
establish  herself,  though  it  be  only  secession  of  the  Gulf 
States,  the  people  of  the  United  States  will  soon  be  free 
from  slavery. 

In  judging  of  the  success  or  want  of  success  of  any  polit- 
ical institutions  or  of  any  form  of  government,  We  should 
be  guided,  I  think,  by  the  general  results,  and  not  by  any 
abstract  rules  as  to  the  right  or  wrong  of  those  institutions 
or  of  that  form.  It  might  be  easy  for  a  German  lawyer  to 
show  that  our  system  of  trial  by  jury  is  open  to  the  gravest 
objections,  and  that  it  sins  against  common  sense.  But  if 
that  system  gives  us  substantial  justice,  and  protects  us  from 
the  tyranny  of  men  in  office,  the  German  will  not  succeed 
in  making  us  believe  that  it  is  a  bad  system.  When  looking 
into  the  matter  of  the  schools  at  Boston,  I  observed  to  one 
of  the  committee  of  management  that  the  statements  with 
which  I  was  supplied,  though  they  told  me  how  many  of  the 
children  went  to  school,  did  not  tell  me  how  long  they  re- 
mained at  school.  The  gentleman  replied  that  that  inform- 
ation was  to  be  obtained  from  the  result  of  the  schooling  of 


CONCLUSION. 


319 


the  population  generally.  Every  boy  and  girl  around  him 
could  read  and  write,  and  could  enjoy  reading  and  writing. 
There  was  therefore  evidence  to  show  that  they  remained  at 
school  sufficiently  long  for  the  required  purposes.  It  was 
fair  that  I  should  judge  of  the  system  from  the  results. 
Here,  in  England,  we  generally  object  to  much  that  the 
Americans  have  adopted  into  their  form  of  government,  and 
think  that  many  of  their  political  theories  are  wrong.  We 
do  not  like  universal  suffrage.  We  do  not  like  a  periodical 
change  in  the  first  magistrate ;  and  we  like  quite  as  little  a 
periodical  permanence  in  the  political  officers  immediately 
under  the  chief  magistrate;  we  are,  in  short,  wedded  to  our 
own  forms,  and  therefore  opposed  by  judgment  to  forms 
differing  from  our  own.  But  I  think  we  all  acknowledge 
that  the  United  States,  burdened  as  they  are  with  these  po- 
litical evils — as  we  think  them — have  grown  in  strength  and 
material  prosperity  with  a  celerity  of  growth  hitherto  un- 
known among  nations.  We  may  dislike  Americans  personally, 
we  may  find  ourselves  uncomfortable  when  there,  and  unable 
to  sympathize  with  them  when  away.  We  may  believe  them  to 
be  ambitious,  unjust,  self-idolatrous,  or  irreligious  ;  but  unless 
we  throw  our  judgment  altog-ether  overboard,  we  cannot  be- 
lieve them  to  be  a  weak  people,  a  poor  people,  a  people  with 
low  spirits  or  with  idle  hands.  Now  to  what  is  it  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  country  should  chiefly  look  ?  What  special  ad- 
vantages do  we  expect  from  our  own  government  ?  Is  it  not 
that  we  should  be  safe  at  home  and  respected  abroad — that 
laws  should  be  maintained,  but  that  they  should  be  so  main- 
tained that  they  should  not  be  oppressive  ?  There  are, 
doubtless,  countries  in  whicti  the  government  professes  to  do 
much  more  than  this  for  its  people — countries  in  which  the 
government  is  paternal;  in  which  it  regulates  the  religion 
of  the  people,  and  professes  to  enforce  on  all  the  national 
children  respect  for  the  governors,  teachers,  spiritual  pas- 
tors, and  masters.  But  that  is  not  our  idea  of  a  government. 
That  is  not  what  we  desire  to  see  established  among  our- 
selves or  established  among  others.  Safety  from  foreign 
foes,  respect  from  foreign  foes  and  friends,  security  under 
the  law  and  security  from  the  law,  this  is  what  we  expect 
from  our  government ;  and  if  I  add  to  this  that  we  expect  to 
have  these  good  things  provided  at  a  fairly  moderate  cost,  I 
think  I  have  exhausted  the  list  of  our  requirements.  I  hardly 
think  that  wc  even  yet  expect  the  government  to  take  the 


320 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


first  steps  in  the  rudimentary  education  of  the  people.  We 

certainly  do  not  expect  it  to  make  the  people  religious,  or 
to  keep  them  honest. 

And  if  the  Americans  with  their  form  of  government 
have  done  for  themselves  all  that  we  expect  our  government 
to  do  for  us ;  if  they  have  with  some  fair  approach  to  gen- 
eral excellence  obtained  respect  abroad  and  security  at  home 
from  foreign  foes;  if  they  have  made  life,  liberty,  and  prop- 
erty safe  under  their  laws,  and  have  also  so  written  and 
executed  their  laws  as  to  secure  their  people  from  legal  op- 
pression,— I  maintain  that  they  are  entitled  to  a  verdict  in 
their  favor,  let  us  object  as  we  may  to  universal  suffrage,  to 
four  years'  Presidents  and  four  years'  presidential  cabinets. 
What,  after  all,  matters  the  theory  or  the  system,  whether  it  be 
king  or  president,  universal  suffrage  or  ten-pound  voter,  so 
long  as  the  people  be  free  and  prosperous  ?  King  and  presi- 
dent, suffrage  by  poll  and  suffrage  by  property,  are  but  the 
means.  If  the  end  be  there,  if  the  thing  has  been  done, 
king  and  president,  open  suffrage  and  close  suffrage,  may 
alike  be  declared  to  have  been  successful.  The  Americans 
have  been  in  existence  as  a  nation  for  seventy-five  years,  and 
have  achieved  an  amount  of  foreign  respect  during  that  pe- 
riod greater  than  any  other  nation  ever  obtained  in  double 
the  time.  And  this  has  been  given  to  them,  not  in  deference  to 
the  statesmanlike  craft  of  their  diplomatic  and  other  officers, 
but  on  grounds  the  very  opposite  of  those.  It  has  been 
given  to  them  because  they  form  a  numerous,  wealthy,  brave, 
and  self-asserting  nation.  It  is,  I  think,  unnecessary  to 
prove  that  such  foreign  respect  has  been  given  to  them ;  but 
were  it  necessary,  nothing  would  prove  it  more  strongly 
than  the  regard  which  has  been  universally  paid  by  European 
governments  to  the  blockade  placed  during  this  war  on  the 
Southern  ports  by  the  government  of  the  United  States. 
Had  the  nation  been  placed  by  general  consent  in  any  class 
of  nations  below  the  first,  England,  France,  and  perhaps 
Russia  would  have  taken  the  matter  into  their  own  hands, 
and  have  settled  for  the  States,  either  united  or  disunited, 
at  any  rate  that  question  of  the  blockade.  And  the  Amer- 
icans have  been  safe  at  home  from  foreign  foes ;  scr  safe,  that 
no  other  strong  people  but  ourselves  have  enjoyed  anything 
approaching  to  their  security  since  their  foundation.  Nor 
has  our  security  been  at  all  equal  to  theirs,  if  we  are  to 
count  our  nationality  as  extending  beyond  the  British  Isles. 


CONCLUSION. 


321 


Then  as  to  security  under  their  laws  and  from  their  laws ! 
Those  laws  and  the  system  of  their  management  have  been 
taken  almost  entirely  from  us,  and  have  so  been  adminis- 
tered that  life  and  property  have  been  safe,  and  the  subject 
also  has  been  free,  under  the  law.  I  think  that  this  may  be 
taken  for  granted,  seeing  that  they  who  have  been  most  op- 
posed to  American  forms  of  government  have  never  asserted 
the  reverse.  I  may  be  told  of  a  man  being  lynched  in  one 
State,  or  tarred  and  feathered  in  another,  or  of  a  duel  in  a 
third  being  "fought  at  sight."  So  I  may  be  told  also  of 
men  garroted  in  London,  and  of  tithe  proctors  buried  in  a 
bog  without  their  ears  in  Ireland.  Neither  will  seventy 
years  of  continuance,  nor  will  seven  hundred,  secure  such  an 
observance  of  laws  as  will  prevent  temporary  ebullition  of 
popular  feeling,  or  save  a  people  from  the  chance  disgrace 
of  occasional  outrage.  Taking  the  general,  life  and  limb 
and  property  have  been  as  safe  in  the  States  as  in  other 
civilized  countries  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 

As  to  their  personal  liberty  under  their  laws,  I  know  it 
will  be  said  that  they  have  surrendered  all  claim  to  any 
such  precious  possession  by  the  facility  with  which  they 
have  now  surrendered  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus.  It  has  been  taken  from  them,  as  I  have  endeavored 
to  show,  illegally,  and  they  have  submitted  to  the  loss  and 
to  the  illegality  without  a  murmur  !  But  in  such  a  matter 
I  do  not  think  it  fair  to  judge  them  by  their  conduct  in  such 
a  moment  as  the  present.  That  this  is  the  very  moment  in 
which  to  judge  of  the  efficiency  of  their  institutions  gen- 
erally, of  the  aptitude  of  those  institutions  for  the  security 
of  the  nation,  I  readily  acknowledge ;  but  when  a  ship  is  at 
sea  in  a  storm,  riding  out  through  all  that  the  winds  and 
waves  can  do  to  her,  one  does  not  condemn  her  because  a 
yard-arm  gives  way,  nor  even  though  the  mainmast  should 
go  by  the  board.  If  she  can  make  her  port,  saving  life  and 
cargo,  she  is  a  good  ship,  let  her  losses  in  spars  and  rigging 
be  what  they  may.  In  this  affair  of  the  habeas  corpus 
we  will  wait  awhile  before  we  come  to  any  final  judgment. 
If  it  be  that  the  people,  when  the  war  is  over,  shall  con- 
sent to  live  under  a  military  or  other  dictatorship,  that 
they  shall  quietly  continue  their  course  as  a  nation  without 
recovery  of  their  rights  of  freedom,  then  we  shall  have  to 
say  that  their  institutions  were  not  founded  in  a  soil  of 
sufficient  depth,  and  that  they  gave  way  before  the  first  high 


322 


NORTH  AMERICA.' 


wind  tliat  blew  on  them.  I  myself  do  not  expect  such  a 
result. 

I  think  we  must  admit  that  the  Americans  have  received 
from  their  government,  or  rather  from  their  system  of 
policy,  that  aid  and  furtherance  which  they  required  from 
it ;  and,  moreover,  such  aid  and  furtherance  as  we  expect 
from  our  system  of  government.  We  must  admit  that  they 
have  been  great,  and  free,  and  prosperous,  as  we  also  have 
become.  And  we  must  admit  also  that  in  some  matters 
they  have  gone  forward  in  advance  of  us.  They  have  edu- 
cated their  people,  as  we  have  not  educated  ours.  They 
have  given  to  their  millions  a  personal  respect,  and  a  stand- 
ing above  the  abjectness  of  poverty,  which  with  us  are  much 
less  general  than  with  them.  These  things,  I  grant,  have 
not  come  of  their  government,  and  have  not  been  produced 
by  their  written  Constitution.  They  are  the  happy  results 
of  their  happy  circumstances.  But  so  also  are  not  those 
evil  attributes  which  we  sometimes  assign  to  them  the 
creatures  of  their  government  or  of  their  Constitution.  We 
acknowledge  them  to  be  well  educated,  intelligent,  philan- 
thropic, and  industrious ;  but  we  say  that  they  are  am- 
bitious, unjust,  self-idolatrous,  and  irreligious.  If  so,  let 
us  at  any  rate  balance  the  virtues  against  the  vices.  As  to 
their  ambition,  it  is  a  vice  that  leans  so  to  virtue's  side  that 
it  hardly  needs  an  apology.  As  to  their  injustice,  or  rather 
dishonesty,  I  have  said  what  I  have  to  say  on  that  matter. 
I  am  not  going  to  flinch  from  the  accusation  I  have  brought, 
though  I  am  aware  that  in  bringing  it  I  have  thrown  away 
any  hope  that  I  might  have  had  of  carrying  with  me  the 
good-will  of  the  Americans  for  my  book.  The  love  of 
money — or  rather  of  making  money — carried  to  an  extreme, 
has  lessened  that  instinctive  respect  for  the  rights  of  meum 
and  tuum,  which  all  men  feel  more  or  less,  and  which,  when 
encouraged  within  the  human  breast,  finds  its  result  in  per- 
fect honesty.  Other  nations,  of  which  I  will  not  now  stop 
to  name  even  one,  have  had  their  periods  of  natural  dis- 
honesty. It  may  be  that  others  are  even  now  to  be  placed 
in  the  same  category.  But  it  is  a  fault  which  industry  and 
intelligence  combined  will  after  awhile  serve  to  lessen  and 
to  banish.  The  industrious  man  desires  to  keep  the  fruit 
of  his  own  industry,  and  the  intelligent  man  will  ultimately 
be  able  to  do  so.  That  the  Americans  are  self-idolaters  is 
perhaps  true — with  a  dilference.    An  American  desires  you 


CONCLUSION. 


323 


to  worship  his  country,  or  his  brother ;  but  he  does  not 
often,  by  any  of  the  usual  signs  of  conceit,  call  upon  you  to 
worship  himself ;  as  an  American,  treating  of  America,  he 
is  self-idolatrous  ;  that  is  a  self-idolatry  which  I  can  endure. 
Then,  as  to  his  want  of  religion — and  it  is  a  very  sad  want — 
I  can  only  say  of  him  that  I,  as  an  Englishman,  do  not  feel 
myself  justified  in  flinging  the  first  stone  at  him.  In  that 
matter  of  religion,  as  in  the  matter  of  education,  the  Ameri- 
can, I  think,  stands  on  a  level  higher  than  ours.  There  is 
not  in  the  States  so  absolute  an  ignorance  of  religion  as  is 
to  be  found  in  some  of  our  manufacturing  and  mining  dis- 
tricts, and  also,  alas  I  in  some  of  our  agricultural  districts ; 
but  also,  I  think,  there  is  less  of  respect  and  veneration  for 
God's  word  among  their  educated  classes  than  there  is  with 
us;  and,  perhaps,  also  less  knowledge  as  to  God's  word. 
The  general  religious  level  is,  I  think,  higher  with  them  ; 
but  there  is,  if  I  am  right  in  my  supposition,  with  us  a  higher 
eminence  in  religion,  as  there  is  also  a  deeper  depth  of  un- 
godliness. 

I  think,  then,  that  we  are  bound  to  acknowledge  that  the 
Americans  have  succeeded  as  a  nation,  politically  and  so- 
cially. When  I  speak  of  social  success,  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  their  manners  are  correct  according  to  this  or  that 
standard ;  I  will  not  say  that  they  are  correct  or  are  not 
correct.  In  that  matter  of  manners  I  have  found  those  with 
wiiom  it  seemed  to  me  natural  that  I  should  associate  very 
pleasant  according  to  my  standard.  I  do  not  know  that  I 
am  a  good  critic  on  such  a  subject,  or  that  I  have  ever 
thought  much  of  it  with  the  view  of  criticising ;  I  have 
been  happy  and  comfortable  with  them,  and  for  me  that  has 
been  suflQcient.  In  speaking  of  social  success  I  allude  to 
their  success  in  private  life  as  distinguished  from  that  which 
they  have  achieved  in  public  life ;  to  their  successes  in  com- 
merce, in  mechanics,  in  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life,  in 
physic  and  all  that  leads  to  the  solace  of  affliction,  in  liter- 
ature, and  I  may  add  also,  considering  the  youth  of  the  na- 
tion, in  the  arts.  We  are,  I  think,  bound  to  acknowledge 
that  they  have  succeeded.  And  if  they  have  succeeded,  it 
is  vain  for  us  to  say  that  a  system  is  wrong  which  has,  at 
any  rate,  admitted  of  such  success.  That  which  was  wanted 
from  some  form  of  government,  has  been  obtained  with 
much  more  than  average  excellence  ;  and  therefore  the  form 
adopted  has  approved  itself  as  good.    You  may  explain  to 


324 


NORTU  AMERICA. 


a  farmer's  wife,  with  indisputable  logic,  that  her  churn  is  a 
bad  churn  ;  but  as  long  as  she  turns  out  butter  in  greater 
quantity,  in  better  quality,  and  with  more  profit  than  her 
neighbors,  you  will  hardly  induce  her  to  change  it.  It  may 
be  that  with  some  other  churn  she  might  have  done  even 
better  ;  but,  under  such  circumstances,  she  will  have  a  right 
to  tliink  well  of  the  churn  she  uses. 

The  American  Constitution  is  now,  I  think,  at  the  crisis 
of  its  severest  trial.  I  conceive  it  to  be  by  no  means  per- 
fect, even  for  the  wants  of  the  people  who  use  it;  and  I 
have  already  endeavored  to  explain  what  changes  it  seems 
to  need.  And  it  has  had  this  defect — that  it  has  permitted 
a  falling  away  from  its  intended  modes  of  action,  while  its 
letter  has  been  kept  sacred.  As  I  have  endeavored  to 
show,  universal  suffrage  and  democratic  actioa  in  the  Senate 
were  not  intended  by  the  framers  of  the  Constitution.  In 
this  respect  the  Constitution  has,  as  it  were,  fallen  through, 
and  it  is  needed  that  its  very  beams  should  be  restrength- 
ened.  There  are  also  other  matters  as  to  which  it  seems 
that  some  change  is  indispensable.  So  much  I  have  ad- 
mitted. But,  not  the  less,  judging  of  it  by  the  entirety  of 
the  work  that  it  has  done,  I  think  that  we  are  bound  to 
own  that  it  has  been  successful. 

And  now,  with  regard  to  this  tedious  war,  of  which  from 
day  to  day  we  are  still,  in  this  month  of  May,  1862,  hear- 
ing details  which  teach  us  to  think  that  it  can  hardly  as  yet 
be  near  its  end.  To  what  may  we  rationally  look  as  its  re- 
sult ?  Of  one  thing  I  myself  feel  tolerably  certain,  that  its 
result  will  not  be  nothing,  as  some  among  us  have  seemed 
to  suppose  may  be  probable.  I  cannot  believe  that  all  this 
energy  on  the  part  of  the  North  will  be  of  no  avail,  more 
than  I  suppose  that  Southern  perseverance  will  be  of  no 
avail.  There  are  those  among  us  who  say  that  a  secession 
will  at  last  be  accomplished  ;  the  North  should  have  yielded 
to  the  South  at  once,  and  that  nothing  will  be  gained  by 
their  great  expenditure  of  life  and  treasure.  I  can  by  no 
means  bring  myself  to  agree  with  these.  I  also  look  to 
the  establishment  of  secession.  Seeing  how  essential  and 
thorough  are  the  points  of  variance  between  the  North  and 
the  South,  how  unlike  the  one  people  is  to  the  other,  and 
how  necessary  it  is  that  their  policies  should  be  different ; 
seeing  how  deep  are  their  antipathies,  and  how  fixed  is 
each  side  in  the  belief  of  its  own  rectitude  and  in  the  be- 


CONCLUSION. 


lief  also  of  the  other's  political  baseness,  I  cannot  believe 
that  the  really  Southern  States  will  ever  again  be  joined  in 
amicable  union  with  those  of  the  North.  They,  the  States 
of  the  Gulf,  may  be  utterly  subjugated,  and  the  North  may 
hold  over  them  military  power.  Georgia  and  her  sisters 
may  for  awhile  belong  to  the  Union,  as  one  conquered 
country  belongs  to  another.  But  I  do  not  think  that  they 
will  ever  act  with  the  Union;  and,  as  I  imagine,  the  Union 
before  long  will  agree  to  a  separation.  1  do  not  mean  to 
prophesy  that  the  result,  will  be  thus  accomplished.  It 
may  be  that  the  South  will  effect  their  own  independence 
before  they  lay  down  their  arms.  I  think,  however,  that 
we  may  look  forward  to  such  independence,  whether  it  be 
achieved  in  that  way,  or  in  this,  or  in  some  other. 

But  not  on  that  account  will  the  war  have  been  of  no 
avail  to  the  North.  I  think  it  must  be  already  evident  to 
all  those  who  have  looked  into  the  matter,  that  had  the 
North  yielded  to  the  first  call  made  by  the  South  for  seces- 
sion all  the  slave  States  must  have  gone.  Maryland  would 
have  gone,  carrying  Delaware  in  its  arms;  and  if  Mary- 
land, all  south  of  Maryland.  If  Maryland  had  gone,  the 
capital  would  have  gone.  If  the  government  had  resolved 
to  yield,  Virginia  to  the  east  would  assuredly  have  gone, 
and  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Missouri,  to  the 
west,  would  have  gone  also.  The  feeling  for  the  Union  iu 
Kentucky  was  very  strong,  but  I  do  not  think  that  even 
Kentucky  could  have  saved  itself.  To  have  yielded  to  the 
Southern  demands  would  have  been  to  have  yielded  every- 
thing. But  no  man  now  presumes,  let  the  contest  go  as  it 
will,  that  Maryland  and  Delaware  will  go  with  the  South. 
The  secessionists  of  Baltimore  do  not  think  so,  nor  the 
gentlemen  and  ladies  of  Washington,  whose  whole  hearts 
are  in  the  Southern  cause.  No  man  thinks  that  Maryland 
will  go,  and  few,  I  believe,  imagine  that  either  Missouri 
or  Kentucky  will  be  divided  from  the  North.  I  will  not 
pretend  what  may  be  the  exact  line,  but  I  myself  feel 
confident  that  it  will  run  south  both  of  Virginia  and  of 
Kentucky. 

If  the  North  do  conquer  the  South,  and  so  arrange  their 
matters  that  the  Southern  States  shall  again  become  mem- 
bers of  the  Union,  it  will  be  admitted  that  they  have  done 
all  that  they  ought  to  do.  If  they  do  not  do  this — if  in- 
stead of  doing  this,  which  would  be  all  that  they  desire, 
VOL.  n. — 28 


326 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


they  were  in  truth  to  do  nothing;  to  win  finaUy  not  one 
foot  of  ground  from  the  South — a  supposition  which  I  re- 
gard as  impossible — I  thinlv  that  we  should  still  admit  after 
awhile  that  they  had  done  their  duty  in  endeavoring  to 
maintain  the  integrity  of  the  empire.  But  if,  as  a  third 
and  more  probable  alternative,  they  succeed  in  rescuing 
from  the  South  and  from  slavery  four  or  five  of  the  finest 
States  of  the  old  Union — and  a  vast  portion  of  the  conti- 
nent to  be  beaten  by  none  other  in  salubrity,  fertility, 
beauty,  and  political  importance-,— will  it  not  then  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  war  has  done  some  good,  and  that  the  life 
and  treasure  have  not  been  spent  in  vain  ? 

That  is  the  termination  of  the  contest  to  which  I  look 
forward.  I  think  that  there  will  be  secession,  but  that  the 
terms  of  secession  will  be  dictated  by  the  North,  not  by 
the  South;  and  among  these  terms  I  expect  to  see  an 
escape  from  slavery  for  those  border  States  to  which  I 
have  alluded.  In  that  proposition  which  in  February  last 
(1862)  was  made  by  the  President,  and  which  has  since 
been  sanctioned  by  the  Senate,  I  think  we  may  see  the  first 
step  toward  this  measure.  It  may  probably  be  the  case 
that  many  of  the  slaves  will  be  driven  South ;  that  as  the 
owners  of  those  slaves  are  driven  from  their  holdings  in 
Virginia  they  will  take  their  slaves  with  them,  or  send 
them  before  them.  The  manumission,  when  it  reaches 
Yirginia,  will  not  probably  enfranchise  the  half  million  of 
slaves  who,  in  1860,  were  counted  among  its  population. 
But  as  to  that  I  confess  myself  to  be  comparatively  care- 
less; it  is  not  the  concern  which  I  have  now  at  heart.  For 
myself,  I  shall  feel  satisfied  if  that  manumission  shall  reach 
the  million  of  whites  by  whom  Yirginia  is  populated;  or 
if  not  that  million  in  its  integrity,  then  that  other  million 
by  which  its  rich  soil  would  soon  be  tenanted.  There  are 
now  about  four  million  of  white  men  and  women  inhabit- 
ing the  slave  States  which  I  have  described,  and  I  think  it 
will  be  acknowledged  that  the  Northern  States  will  have 
done  something  with  their  armies  if  they  succeed  in  res- 
cuing those  four  millions  from  the  stain  and  evil  of  slavery. 

There  is  a  third  question  which  I  have  asked  myself,  and 
to  which  I  have  undertaken  to  give  some  answer.  When 
this  war  be  over  between  the  Northern  and  Southern  States, 
will  there  come  upon  us  a  necessity  of  fighting  with  the 
Americans  ?    If  there  do  come  such  necessity,  arising  out 


CONCLUSION. 


32t 


of  our  conduct  to  the  States  during  tlie  period  of  their  civil 
war,  it  will  indeed  be  hard  upon  us,  as  a  nation,  seeing  the 
struggle  that  we  as  a  nation  have  made  to  be  just  in  our 
dealings  toward  the  States  generally,  whether  they  be  North 
or  South.  To  be  just  in  such  a  period,  and  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, is  very  difficult.  In  that  contest  between  Sar- 
dinia and  Austria  it  was  all  but  impossible  to  be  just  to  the 
Italians  without  being  unjust  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria. 
To  have  been  strictly  just  at  the  moment  one  should  have 
begun  by  confessing  the  injustice  of  so  much  that  had  gone 
before  I  But  in  this  American  contest  such  justice,  though 
difficult,  was  easier.  Affairs  of  trade  rather  than  of  treaties 
chiefly  interfered ;  and  these  affairs,  by  a  total  disregard  of 
our  own  pecuniary  interests,  could  be  so  managed  that  jus- 
tice might  be  done.  This  I  think  was  effected.  It  may 
be,  of  course,  that  I  am  prejudiced  on  the  side  of  my  own 
nation;  but  striving  to  judge  of  the  matter  as  best  I  may 
without  prejudice,  I  cannot  see  that  we,  as  a  nation,  have 
in  aught  offended  against  the  strictest  justice  in  our  deal- 
ings with  America  during  this  contest.  But  justice  has 
not  sufficed.  I  do  not  know  that  our  bitterest  foes  in  the 
Northern  States  have  accused  us  of  acting  unjustly.  It  is 
not  justice  which  they  have  looked  for  at  our  hands,  and 
looked  for  in  vain — not  justice,  but  generosity  I  We  have 
not,  as  they  say,  sympathized  with  them  in  their  trouble. 
It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  complaint  is  unworthy  of  them 
as  a  nation,  as  a  people,  or  as  individuals.  In  such  a  mat- 
ter generosity  is  another  name  for  injustice,  as  it  too  often 
is  in  all  matters.  A  generous  sympathy  with  the  North 
would  have  been  an  ostensible  and  crushing  enmity  to  the 
South.  We  could  not  have  sympathized  with  the  North 
without  condemning  the  South,  and  telling  to  the  world 
that  the  South  were  our  enemies.  In  ordering  his  own 
household  a  man  should  not  want  generosity  or  sympathy 
from  the  outside ;  and  if  not  a  man,  then  certainly  not  a 
nation.  Generosity  between  nations  must  in  its  very  nature 
be  wrong.  One  nation  may  be  just  to  another,  courteous 
to  another,  even  considerate  to  another  with  propriety. 
But  no  nation  can  be  generous  to  another  without  injustice 
either  to  some  third  nation  or  to  itself. 

But  though  no  accusation  of  unfairness  has,  as  far  as  I 
am  aware,  ever  been  made  by  the  government  of  Washing- 
ton against  the  government  of  England,  there  can  be  no 


328 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


doubt  that  a  very  strong  feeling  of  antipatliy  to  England 
has  sprung  up  in  America  during  this  war,  and  that  it  is 
even  yet  so  intense  in  its  bitterness  that,  were  the  North  to 
become  speedily  victorious  in  their  present  contest,  very 
many  Americans  would  be  anxious  to  turn  their  arms  at 
once  against  Canada.  And  I  fear  that  that  fight  between 
the  J\lonitor  and  the  Merrimac  has  strengthened  this  wish 
by  giving  to  the  Americans  an  unwarranted  confidence  in 
their  capability  of  defending  themselves  against  any  injury 
from  British  shipping.  It  may  be  said  by  them,  and  prob- 
ably would  be  said  by  many  of  them,  that  this  feeling  of 
enmity  had  not  been  engendered  by  any  idea  of  national 
injustice  on  our  side;  that  it  might  reasonably  exist,  though 
no  suspicion  of  such  injustice  had  arisen  in  the  minds  of 
any.  They  would  argue  that  the  hatred  oh  their  part  had 
been  engendered  by  scorn  on  ours — by  scorn  and  ill  words 
heaped  upon  them  in  their  distress. 

They  would  say  that  slander,  scorn,  and  uncharitable  judg- 
ments create  deeper  feuds  than  do  robbery  and  violence, 
and  produce  deeper  enmity  and  worse  rancor.  "It  is  be- 
cause we  have  been  scorned  by  England,  that  we  hate  Eng- 
land. We  have  been  told  from  week  to  week,  and  from 
day  to  day,  that  we  were  fools,  cowards,  knaves,  and  mad- 
men. We  have  been  treated  with  disrespect,  and  that  dis- 
respect we  will  avenge."  It  is  thus  that  they  speak  of 
England,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  opinion  so 
expressed  is  very  general.  It  is  not  my  purpose  here  to 
say  whether  in  this  respect  England  has  given  cause  of 
offense  to  the  States,  or  whether  either  country  has  given 
cause  of  offense  to  the  other.  On  both  sides  have  many 
hard  words  been  spoken,  and  on  both  sides  also  have  good 
words  been  spoken.  It  is  unfortunately  the  case  that  hard 
words  are  pregnant,  and  as  such  they  are  read,  digested, 
and  remembered ;  while  good  words  are  generally  so  dull 
that  nobody  reads  them  willingly,  and  when  read,  they  are 
forgotten.  For  many  years  there  have  been  hard  words 
bandied  backward  and  forward  between  England  and  the 
United  States,  showing  mutual  jealousies,  and  a  disposition 
on  the  part  of  each  nation  to  spare  no  fault  committed  by 
the  other.  This  has  grown  of  rivalry  between  the  two,  and 
in  fact  proves  the  respect  which  each  has  for  the  other's 
power  and  wealth.  I  will  not  now  pretend  to  say  with 
which  side  has  been  the  chiefest  blame,  if  there  has  been 


COjS'GLUSlOX. 


329 


chiefest  blame  on  eitlier  side.  But  I  do  saj^  that  it  is  mon- 
strous in  any  people  or  in  any  person  to  suppose  that  sueli 
bickerings  can  afford  a  proper  ground  for  war.  1  am  not 
about  to  dilate  on  the  horrors  of  war.  Horrid  as  war  may 
be,  and  full  of  evil,  it  is  not  so  horrid  to  a  nation,  nor  so 
full  of  evil,  as  national  insult  unavenged  or  as  national  in- 
jury unredressed.  A  blow  taken  by  a  nation  and  taken 
without  atonement  is  an  acknowledgment  of  national  in- 
feriority, than  which  any  war  is  preferable.  Neither  Eng- 
land nor  the  States  are  inclined  to  take  such  blows.  But 
such  a  blow,  before  it  can  be  regarded  as  a  national  insult, 
as  a  wrong  done  by  one  nation  to  another,  must  be  inflicted 
by  the  political  entity  of  the  one  or  the  political  entity  of 
the  other.  No  angry  clamors  of  the  press,  no  declamations 
of  orators,  no  voices  from  the  people,  no  studied  criticisms 
from  the  learned  few,  or  unstudied  censures  from  society  at 
large,  can  have  any  fair  weight  on  such  a  creation  or  do 
aught  toward  justifying  a  national  quarrel.  They  cannot 
form  a  casus  belli.  Those  two  Latin  words,  which  we  all 
understand,  explain  this  with  the  utmost  accuracy.  AVere 
it  not  so,  the  peace  of  the  world  would  indeed  re.st  upon 
sand.  Causes  of  national  difference  vdll  arise — for  govern- 
ments will  be  unjust  as  are  individuals.  And  causes  of  dif- 
ference will  arise  because  governments  are  too  blind  to  dis- 
tinguish the  just  from  the  unjust.  But  in  such  cases  the 
government  acts  on  some  ground  which  it  declares.  It 
either  shows  or  pretends  to  show  some  casus  belli.  But  in 
this  matter  of  threatened  war  between  the  States  and  Eng- 
land it  is  declared  openly  that  such  war  is  to  take  place 
because  the  English  have  abused  the  Americans,  and  be- 
cause consequently  the  Americans  hate  the  English.  There 
seems  to  exist  an  impression  that  no  other  ostensible  ground 
for  fighting  need  be  shown,  although  such  an  event  as  that 
of  war  between  the  two  nations  would,  as  all  men  ticknowl- 
edge,  be  terrible  in  its  results.  "Your  newspapers  insulted 
us  when  we  were  in  our  difficulties.  Your  writers  said  evil 
things  of  us.  Your  legislators  spoke  of  us  with  scorn. 
You  exacted  from  us  a  disagreeable  duty  of  retribution  just 
when  the  performance  of  such  a  duty  was  most  odious  to 
us.  You  have  shown  symptoms  of  joy  at  our  sorrow.  And, 
therefore,  as  soon  as  our  hands  are  at  liberty,  we  will  fight 
you."  I  have  known  school-boys  to  argue  in  that  way,  and 
VOL.  ir.— 28* 


330 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


the  arguments  have  been  intelligible ;  but  I  cannot  under- 
stand that  any  government  should  admit  such  an  argument. 

Nor  will  the  American  government  willingly  admit  it. 
According  to  existing  theories  of  government  the  armies 
of  nations  are  but  the  tools  of  the  governing  powers.  If 
at  the  close  of  the  present  civil  war  the  American  govern- 
ment— the  old  civil  government  consisting  of  the  President 
with  such  checks  as  Congress  constitutionally  has  over 
him — shall  really  hold  the  power  to  which  it  pretends,  I 
do  not  fear  that  there  will  be  any  war.  No  President,  and 
I  think  no  Congress,  will  desire  such  a  war.  Nor  will  the 
people  clamor  for  it,  even  should  the  idea  of  such  a  war  be 
popular.  The  people  of  America  are  not  clamorous  against 
their  government.  If  there  be  such  a  war  it  will  be  because 
the  army  shall  have  then  become  more  powerful  than  the 
government.  If  the  President  can  hold  his  own,  the  people 
will  support  him  in  his  desire  for  peace.  But  if  the  Presi- 
dent do  not  hold  his  own — if  some  general,  with  two  or 
three  hundred  thousand  men  at  his  back,  shall  then  have 
the  upper  hand  in  the  nation — it  is  too  probable  that  the 
people  may  back  him.  The  old  game  will  be  played  again 
that  has  so  often  been  played  in  the  history  of  nations,  and 
some  wretched  military  aspirant  will  go  forth  to  flood 
Canada  with  blood,  in  order  that  the  feathers  of  his  cap 
may  flaunt  in  men's  eyes  and  that  he  may  be  talked  of  for 
some  years  to  come  as  one  of  the  great  curses  let  loose  by 
the  Almighty  on  mankind. 

I  must  confess  that  there  is  danger  of  this.  To  us  the 
danger  is  very  great.  It  cannot  be  good  for  us  to  send 
ships  laden  outside  with  iron  shields  instead  of  inside  with 
soft  goods  and  hardware  to  these  thickly  thronged  Amer- 
ican ports.  It  cannot  be  good  for  us  to  have  to  throw  mil- 
lions into  these  harbors  instead  of  taking  millions  out  from 
them.  It  cannot  be  good  for  us  to  export  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  soldiers  to  Canada  of  whom  only  hundreds 
would  return.  The  whole  turmoil,  cost,  and  paraphernalia 
of  such  a  course  would  be  injurious  to  us  in  the  extreme, 
and  the  loss  of  our  commerce  would  be  nearly  ruinous. 
But  the  injury  of  such  a  war  to  us  would  be  as  nothing  to 
the  injury  which  it  would  inflict  upon  the  States.  To  them 
for  many  years  it  would  be  absolutely  ruinous.  It  would 
entail  not  only  all  those  losses  which  such  a  war  must  bring 
with  it,  but  that  greater  loss  which  would  arise  to  the 


CONCLUSION. 


331 


nation  from  the  fact  of  its  having  been  powerless  to  pre- 
vent it.  Such  a  war  would  prove  that  it  had  lost  the  free- 
dom for  which  it  had  struggled,  and  which  for  so  many 
years  it  has  enjoyed.  For  the  sake  of  that  people  as  well 
as  for  our  own — and  for  their  sakes  rather  than  for  our 
own — let  us,  as  far  as  may  be,  abstain  from  words  which 
are  needlessly  injurious.  They  have  done  much  that  is 
great  and  noble,  ever  since  this  war  has  begun,  and  we  have 
been  slow  to  acknowledge  it.  They  have  made  sacrifices 
for  the  sake  of  their  country  which  we  have  ridiculed. 
They  have  struggled  to  maintain  a  good  cause,  and  we 
have  disbelieved  in  their  earnestness.  They  have  been 
anxious  to  abide  by  their  Constitution,  which  to  them  has 
been  as  it  were  a  second  gospel,  and  we  have  spoken  of  that 
Constitution  as  though  it  had  been  a  thing  of  mere  words  in 
which  life  had  never  existed.  This  has  been  done  while 
their  hands  are  very  full  and  their  back  heavily  laden. 
Such  words  coming  from  us,  or  from  parties  among  us, 
cannot  justify  those  threats  of  war  which  we  hear  spoken; 
but  that  they  should  make  the  hearts  of  men  sore  and 
their  thoughts  bitter  against  us,  can  hardly  be  matter  of 
surprise. 

As  to  the  result  of  any  such  war  between  us  and  them, 
it  would  depend  mainly,  I  think,  on  the  feelings  of  the 
Canadians.  Neither  could  they  annex  Canada  without  the 
good-will  of  the  Canadians,  nor  could  we  keep  Canada 
without  that  good-will.  At  present  the  feeling  in  Canada 
against  the  Northern  States  is  so  strong  and  so  universal 
that  England  has  little  to  fear  on  that  head. 

I  have  now  done  my  task,  and  may  take  leave  of  my 
readers  on  either  side  of  the  water  with  a  hearty  hope  that 
the  existing  war  between  the  North  and  the  South  may 
soon  be  over,  and  that  none  other  may  follow  on  its  heels 
to  exercise  that  new-fledged  military  skill  which  the  exist- 
ing quarrel  will  have  produced  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  I  have  written  my  book  in  obscure  language  if  I 
have  not  shown  that  to  me  social  successes  and  commercial 
prosperity  are  much  dearer  than  any  greatness  that  can  be 
won  by  arms.  The  Americans  had  fondly  thought  that 
they  were  to  be  exempt  from  the  curse  of  war — at  any  rate 
from  the  bitterness  of  the  curse.  But  the  days  for  such 
exemption  have  not  come  as  yet.  While  we  are  hurrying 
on  to  make  twelve-inch  shield  plates  for  our  men-of-war, 


332 


NORTH  AMERICA. 


we  can  hardly  dare  to  think  of  the  days  when  the  sword 
shall  be  turned  into  the  plowshare.  May  it  not  be 
thought  well  for  us  if,  with  such  work  on  our  hands,  scraps 
of  iron  shall  be  left  to  us  with  which  to  pursue  any  of  the 
purposes  of  peace  ?  But  at  least  let  us  not  have  war  with 
these  children  of  our  own.  If  we  must  fight,  let  us  fight 
the  French  ''for  King  George  upon  the  throne."  The 
doing  so  will  be  disagreeable,  but  it  will  not  be  antipathetic 
to  the  nature  of  an  Englishman.  For  my  part,  when  an 
American  tells  me  that  he  wants  to  fight  with  me,  I  regard 
his  offense,  as  compared  with  that  of  a  Frenchman  under 
the  same  circumstances,  as  I  would  compare  the  offense  of 
a  parricide  or  a  fratricide  with  that  of  a  mere  common- 
place murderer.  Such  a  war  would  be  plus  quam  civile 
helium.  Which  of  us  two  could  take  a  thrashing  from  the 
other  and  afterward  go  about  our  business  with  content- 
ment? 

On  our  return  to  Liverpool,  we  stayed  for  a  few  hours  at 
Queenstown,  taking  in  coal,  and  the  passengers  landed  that 
they  might  stretch  their  legs  and  look  about  them.  I  also 
went  ashore  at  the  dear  old  place  which  I  had  known  well 
in  other  days,  when  the  people  were  not  too  grand  to  call 
it  Cove,  and  were  contented  to  run  down  from  Cork  in 
river  steamers,  before  the  Passage  railway  was  built.  I 
spent  a  pleasant  summer  there  once  in  those  times:  God  be 
with  tl)e  good  old  days!  And  now  I  went  ashore  at 
Queenstown,  happy  to  feel  that  I  should  be  again  in  a 
British  isle,  and  happy  also  to  know  that  I  was  once  more 
in  Ireland.  And  wlien  the  people  came  around  me  as  they 
did,  I  seemed  to  know  every  face  and  to  be  familiar  with 
every  voice.  It  has  been  my  fate  to  have  so  close  an  inti- 
macy with  Ireland,  that  when  I  meet  an  Irishman  abroad 
I  always  recognize  in  him  more  of  a  kinsman  than  I  do  in 
your  Englishman.  I  never  ask  an  Englishman  from  what 
county  he  comes,  or  what  was  his  town.  To  Irishmen  I 
usually  put  such  questions,  and  I  am  generally  familiar 
with  the  old  haunts  which  they  name.  I  was  happy  there- 
fore to  feel  myself  again  in  Ireland,  and  to  walk  round, 
from  Queenstown  to  the  river  at  Passage,  by  the  old  way 
that  had  once  been  familiar  to  ray  feet. 

Or  ratlier  I  should  have  been  happy  if  I  had  not  found 
myself  instantly  disgraced  by  the  importunities  of  my 
friends.    A  legion  of  women  surrounded  me,  imploring 


CONCLUSION. 


333 


alms,  begging  my  honor  to  bestow  my  charity  on  them  for 
the  love  of  the  Virgin,  using  the  most  holy  names  in  their 
adjurations  for  half-pence,  clinging  to  me  with  that  half- 
joking,  half-lachrymose  air  of  importunity  which  an  Irish 
beggar  has  assumed  as  peculiarly  her  own.  There  were 
men,  too,  who  begged  as  well  as  women.  And  the  women 
were  sturdy  and  fat,  and,  not  knowing  me  as  well  as  I 
knew  them,  seemed  resolved  that  their  importunities  should 
be  successful.  After  all,  I  had  an  old  world  liking  for 
them  in  their  rags.  They  were  endeared  to  me  by  certain 
memories  and  associations  which  I  cannot  define.  But  then 
what  would  those  Americans  think  of  them — of  them  and  of 
the  country  which  produced  them  ?  That  was  the  reflection 
which  troubled  me.  A  legion  of  women  in  rags  clamorous 
for  bread,  protesting  to  heaven  that  they  are  starving,  im- 
portunate with  voices  and  with  hands,  surrounding  the 
stranger  when  he  puts  his  foot  on  the  soil,  so  that  he  can- 
not escape,  does  not  afford  to  the  cynical  American  who 
then  first  visits  us — and  they  all  are  cynical  when  they  visit 
us — a  bad  opportunity  for  his  sarcasm.  He  can  at  any 
rate  boast  that  he  sees  nothing  of  that  at  home.  I  myself 
am  fond  of  Irish  beggars.  It  is  an  a^jquired  taste,  which 
comes  upon  one  as  does  that  for  smoked  whisky  or  Lim- 
erick tobacco.  But  I  certainly  did  wish  that  there  were 
not  so  many  of  them  at  Queenstown. 

I  tell  all  this  here  not  to  the  disgrace  of  Ireland — not 
for- the  triumph  of  America.  The  Irishman  or  American 
who  thinks  rightly  on  the  subject  will  know  that  the  state 
of  each  country  has  arisen  from  its  opportunities.  Beg- 
gary does  not  prevail  in  new  countries,  and  but  few  old 
countries  have  managed  to  exist  without  it.  As  to  Ireland, 
we  may  rejoice  to  say  that  there  is  less  of  it  now  than  there 
was  twenty  years  since.  Things  are  mending  there.  But 
though  such  excuses  may  be  truly  made — although  an  Eng- 
lishman, when  he  sees  this  squalor  and  poverty  on  the  quays 
at  Queenstown,  consoles  himself  with  reflecting  that  the 
evil  has  been  unavoidable,  but  will  perhaps  soon  be  avoided 
— nevertheless  he  cannot  but  remember  that  there  is  no  such 
squalor  and  no  such  poverty  in  the  land  from  which  he  has 
returned.  I  claim  no  credit  for  the  new  country.  I  im- 
pute no  blame  to  the  old  country.  But  there  is  the  fact. 
The  Irishman  when  he  expatriates  himself  to  one  of  those 
American  States  loses  much  of  that  affectionate,  confiding, 


334 


NORTII  AMERICA. 


master-worshiping  nature  which  makes  him  so  good  a  fel- 
low when  at  home.  But  he  becomes  more  of  a  man.  He 
assumes  a  dignity  which  he  never  has  known  before.  He 
learns  to  regard  his  labor  as  his  own  property.  That  which 
he  earns  he  takes  without  thanks,  but  he  desires  to  take  no 
more  than  he  earns.  To  me  personally,  he  has,  perhaps, 
become  less  pleasant  than  he  was; — but  to  himself  1  It  seems 
to  me  that  such  a  man  .must  feel  himself  half  a  god,  if  he 
has  the  power  of  comparing  what  he  is  with  what  he  was. 

It  is  right  that  all  this  should  be  acknowledged  by  us. 
When  we  speak  of  America  and  of  her  institutions,  we  should 
remember  that  she  has  given  to  our  increasing  population 
rights  and  privileges  which  we  could  not  give — which  as  an 
old  country  we  probably  can  never  give.  That  self-assert- 
ing, obtrusive  independence  which  so  often  wounds  us  is,  if 
viewed  aright,  but  an  outward  sign  of  those  good  things 
which  a  new  country  has  produced  for  its  people.  Men 
and  women  do  not  beg  in  the  States;  they  do  not  offend 
you  with  tattered  rags ;  they  do  not  complain  to  heaven  of 
starvation  ;  they  do  not  crouch  to  the  ground  for  half-pence. 
If  poor,  they  are  not  abject  in  their  poverty.  They  read 
and  write.  They  walk  like  human  beings  made  in  God's 
form.  They  know  that  they  are  men  and  women,  owing  it 
to  themselves  and  to  the  world  that  they  should  earn  their 
bread  by  their  labor,  but  feeling  that  when  earned  it  is  their 
own.  If  this  be  so,  if  it  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  so, 
should  not  such  knowledge  in  itself  be  sufficient  testimony 
of  the  success  of  the  country  and  of  her  institutions  ? 


END  OP  VOL.  II. 


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